


Slow Poison

by Mikkeneko



Category: Marvel (Movies), Thor (2011)
Genre: Community: norsekink, Gen, Past DubCon, and is also a ventriloquist, bratty brother Thor, by hurting them lots, in which loki has serious self-esteem issues, seriously this is how I show my affection for characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years before the events of Thor and Avengers, Loki is working as a spymaster for his father the King. Or at least... that's what he  thinks he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note 1: This was written for the following norsekink prompt. : "Over the years Loki has done everything to protect his family, from drinking poison meant for his Father, Brother, and Mother to letting visiting dignitaries into his bed and body to secure treaties even when those people repulsed him. However, after intercepting an assassin who was meant for his Mother he now is wounded and unable to make any pain relief potion due to needing his ingredients to treat his wound..."
> 
> Note 2: So apparently I'm writing fic for the Marvel Cinematic Universe now. I always said I'd never fangirl a villainous character, but, well, apparently it's time for me to man up and eat my words. I adore Loki, and as usual I express my affection for my favorite characters by putting them through the wringer. If you are the sort of MCU fan who does not like Loki, or dislikes sympathetic portrayals of him, or just generally doesn't like seeing him get kicked around, you will probably not enjoy any of my MCU-verse fic. 
> 
> Note 3: JESUS CHRIST PRESENT TENSE HOW DOES IT WORK.

  
  
The golden palace at Asgard is all in a bustle, for a new delegation has just arrived from Svartalfheim. Tensions have run high with the dark elves lately, and it is widely known that Odin hopes to resolve things through diplomacy, rather than force of arms. A pitched battle now would devastate two realms, not just one; and although hotheads from both sides are eager enough in their calls to battle, so far wiser heads have prevailed. So far.  
  
But the dark elves have sent a new delegation, rich with lavish presents for the rulers of Asgard and laden with profuse apologies for the recent incidents. It is a good sign. The fealty gifts are rushed into a small, secure chamber by servants and guards, which then rush out again to prepare for the feasting that night. Golden light flares and gleams on the chests and platters of riches, gold and jewels, cloth finery, exotic flowers and foods from Svartalfheim. Someone will need to go through and catalogue it before it can be properly stored or delivered, but for now they only wish to get it all stowed.  
  
The heavy door swings shut, reinforced with bars of iron, and heavy bolts drop into place. The glorious treasure is swamped in shadow, and then in silence.  
  
In the stillness, movement: the air ripples, and then a shadow separates from the ceiling and drops lightly to soft-shod feet. The figure reaches up and pushes the shadow back from his face like a man pushing back the hood of a cloak, revealing a pale, narrow face framed with dark hair, and bright, gleaming green eyes.  
  
Loki Odinsson approaches the pile of treasure, casting his gaze over it with a cynical eye. He does not trust the sudden generosity of the dark elves, not at all. They may be more kin to the Aesir than other races of the Nine Realms -- the giants, the dwarves, the humans -- but kinship was no guarantee of good contact. And Loki should know.  
  
Loki reaches out and spreads his pale hands over the pile of riches, like a man warming his hands over a fire. Long fingers twitch, just slightly, as he moves them to and fro, seeking, sensing. He lowers his hands cautiously into the mess, and then stops with an "ah!" of satisfaction.  
  
He plucks from the pile of jewelry a long, elegant comb, carved of polished seashell the like that Asgard has none of for itself. Jewels gleam on the head of the comb, heavy and rich, and if Loki had to guess he rather thought this was intended as a queenly gift for Frigga herself.  
  
It is set with a malevolent curse, heavy enough that he can feel it pulse and throb through his fingers.  
  
Unable to get their way in battle, the elves have lately turned to treachery and deceit, and this would not be the first time they had tried to sneak some poison or weapon onto the palace grounds. This latest attempt at intrusion, it seems, takes the form of a magical bane, a subtle poison. Left in place it would grow in malice and corruption, spreading a dark influence over any it touched, turning health to sickness, strength to weakness, wisdom to madness.  
  
And they had intended to set this on his mother. Loki's eyes gleam with fury, and the sharp-edged smile that crosses his face has nothing at all to do with pleasure.  
  
The dark elves were fools. How many of their little plans would he foil before they finally gave up? It pleased him to think of their growing frustration, as one after another attempt at assassination failed, swallowed up into silence and darkness without even leaving behind any indication of what had gone wrong each time.  
  
And what had gone wrong each time was Loki.  
  
For years, Loki had served his father as an agent of stealth and silence, cunning and trickery. Thor is his father's right hand, serving him at court and at battle, but Loki is his left hand, the one that lingers behind, darting swiftly to strike when the enemy's attention is elsewhere. He moves in the shadows to intercept and eliminate anything that dared to threaten his family, his kingdom, and he does it   _so_ well.   He has developed uncanny senses attuned to danger: to poison, ill-intent and magic. He has learned spells to cloak and shadow himself, wards to heal and protect, and, when necessary, techniques to kill.  
  
He wouldn't tell Mother of what he'd found in the gifts from Svartalfheim, of course. Mother didn't even know.  
  
Thor didn't know, either, nor those insufferable oafs who were his friends. They all laughed at him, sneered behind his back at Loki the weakling, Loki the failure, Loki the trickster. They did not know.  
  
Odin knew, of course, because his father knew everything. His father was ancient as the mountains and wise as the hills. It pleased Loki to think that he had inherited his father's cunning and wisdom, as surely as Thor had inherited his strength of arms.  
  
That was how this had all started. For his birthday, marking his coming of age -- the same occasion where Thor had been granted Mjolnir, when it had been his turn -- Odin had given him a book of spells. One of the spells hidden within the pages was a spell of cloaking, of shadow-walking, the ways of moving unseen and passing through walls as a spirit.  
  
As soon as he'd read that Loki had felt an epiphany, a jolt of excitement. He understood at once what Odin had intended by giving him this book, this spell. Finally, he knew what he was meant to do with his life. Finally, he had a purpose to match Thor's. Stealth, trickery. That was how Odin meant him to serve the house of the Aesir. He would be the left hand to Thor's right, the shield to Thor's sword, the moon to Thor's sun. That was what Odin wanted from him, that was how he could make his father proud. Not by competing with his brother but by complementing him.  
  
Today when Odin had spoken  about the cloying offerings of the Dark Elf delegation that would be arriving today, and how they could not refuse them for fear of causing offense, Loki understood immediately that Odin meant for him to go and check over the gifts for possible traps. It could not be done openly, so of course it would fall to Loki.  
  
And Odin had been right. He always was, of course.  
  
But now that he'd found it, what best to do?  
  
Loki turns his attention back to this nasty little spell. Careful fingers tease it apart from the comb, captured the wisp of pulsing magic in his palms like a fluttering moth. He considers. He could simply destroy it, but that would mean that whoever had created this spell would sense its dissipation and know at once that their spell had failed.  
  
Far better to let their enemies run with the misconception that their curse was still active and working, a seed of destruction planted in the heart of Asgard. For a moment Loki is tempted -- wickedly tempted -- to plant the spell on another and let it run its course. To transfer the doom to some other member of Asgard's court who has plagued him for far too long; perhaps that obsequious snuffling toady Byggvir, who never passed up some opportunity to spread gossip; or maybe even Thor's insufferable friend Fandral, who had convinced himself that he was God's gift to the women of the court and seemed to determine to plow a ditch in every one of them before the season was out.  
  
But that is an unworthy thought for a son of Odin, and Loki lets it go. Besides, that would be unwise; if the spell cannot be destroyed it must be contained, and of all the court Loki is the one best suited to such a task. He considers fashioning some flask to serve as its cage and hiding it under the stone floor in his quarters, but he will need to be away from his rooms for many hours over the next few days and really should not leave this dangerous little morsel unattended.  
  
Loki shrugs. Best to dispose of this spell, then, in the same way that he takes care of all other dangerous poisons that he has intercepted over the years; discreet, thorough, and infallible. He pops the little spell in his mouth, and swallows it.

* * *

  
  
  
There is precious time to spare before the feast that night; Loki barely has time to slide unseen into his quarters and get dressed in the festival finery appropriate for tonight's banquet. Annoyed by the pomp and posturing, Loki would just have soon have glamoured his working clothes into the semblance of festival gear and gone as he was, but there was always the chance that his concentration might slip later in the evening. So he yanks the soft pine-green and charcoal-grey garments over his head and throws them into a corner, where they vanish; and the rest of the hour is spent struggling with the layers and buckles of court attire.  
  
The tunic is tight around his chest and shoulders, and he hasn't even left his quarters before he's feeling overheated and annoyed. The spell that he swallowed remains a hot, solid lump like a marble stuck under his breastbone; it jabs him every time he breathes, but there is no time now to brew a potion to counter the sensations, so he will just have to live with it.  
  
He makes it to the dining hall just shy of late; all the important players have arrived, but the formality of the feast has not quite convened. His father nods at him as he sidles past, and his mother smiles at him as he takes his place by her left hand. He is across from Thor, with his back to the wall so that he can keep a close eye on the activity at other tables. This is the ideal positioning, where he can watch without being watched, Thor's bulk helpfully hiding him from the rest of the room.  
  
And here, within bare arms' reach of each of his family members, Loki is in a position to intercept any possible attack on any of them -- whether it be open, a rush of bodies with steel and stone from the lower tables, or something more subtle and treacherous.  
  
"Took you long enough to get here, Brother," Thor says with a laugh; he's already eating, and though the cup at his elbow is filled, there is an easiness about his brother's movements and a volume to his laugh that says he's already drunk. Loki frowns quellingly at him.  
  
"I do wish you would at least wait until Father calls the toast before you make a drunken ass of yourself, Thor," Loki comments. It's true; it upsets him that Thor has been drinking somewhere out from under Loki's eye. Someone could have poisoned his cups, and Loki would never have known until it was too late.  
  
Thor rolls his eyes. "Must you always be such a sour stick-in-the-mud?" he complains. "It is a day of celebration! It has been going on _all_  day."  
  
"With the _dökkálfar_?" Loki asks with interest. He lays one hand flat on the table and spreads his fingers out, twitching in Thor's direction; fortunately, he senses no taint of poison, no malicious tingle of ill magic. The gods looked after fools and drunkards, it appeared.  
  
"Among others," Thor chuckles. "These dark elves may have honorless cowards among their ranks, or who else committed the attacks on our enclaves last winter? But I tell you, my brother, they are not all so bad. Why, some of them can even sing!"  
  
"Now that's a stunning endorsement of trustworthiness if I ever heard one," Loki says dryly. He shrugs a little, it does not matter. It is all to the better if Thor plays up the role of the big, harmless, easily beguiled buffoon. He will be the glitter in their eyes, the flash of the weapon they can easily see and thus easily evade.  
  
He settles back against his chair, his eyes half-lidded. He watches the table with the elven ambassadors with only a passing interest; they are not so stupid as to cause any trouble in the middle of a crowded room, after all. He catches one of them staring at Frigga's hair, at the way the bejeweled seashell comb catches the firelight as she turns her head and laughs; the elf looks away, a nasty smirk playing about his lips, and Loki almost laughs aloud. _We're on to you_ , he thinks; _one step ahead, as always._  
  
But most of his attention is split between the servants, bringing food and mead up the tables to serve his family, and his father. The servants because he must monitor the food and drink for poison, and draw it over to himself if he senses any. Positioned as he is towards the end of the table, it is child's play to substitute one goblet for another; it hardly even takes any real magic, only sleight of hand.  
  
His father, however, he watches not out of wary suspicion, but in tense anticipation. These formal meals they take together are one of the few times he regularly sees Odin face to face; this is the only reliable means that his father has to pass him instructions and orders. Whatever his father wishes of him, he will make it known here. Of course, it cannot be done openly in front of the entire hall, but Loki has become adept in reading the subtle nuances of Odin's intentions. They are enough alike, they understand each other well enough that Odin never needs to speak any incriminating words aloud, for his will to be carried out.  
  
Loki remembers the night the Vanir delegation had come, not too long after the dark elves had begun their nasty little campaigns of raids and sabotage. The Vanir would be a valuable ally to Asgard at this time, Odin had explained to him before the feast, a check on the elves' aggression they should take full advantage of. All of Asgard had turned out to honor the visitors from Vanaheim, preparing to court them with games and feasts and celebrations.  
  
Deep in his cups, the head ambassador of the Vanir had spoken boisterously about how fine Odin's younger son had grown, how pale and comely. He'd asked Odin to favor him with Loki's presence in his bed that night, and a shocked hush had fallen over the court at the vulgarity.  
  
Odin had turned to face the man, and in a firm, level voice, refused. His son was not now, and never would be, part of this negotiation. Loki understood that, of course. He would have lost face, to accede to such a brazen request in full view of his men. But when his hand fell on Loki's shoulder in the moment of silence, squeezing firmly,  Loki understood at once what Odin meant for him to do.  
  
They could not afford to lose the support of the Vanir ambassador.  
  
So he'd gone to visit their quarters, later that night when the cheering and feasting had gone down. The ambassador had been surprised to see him, then triumphant, crowing in the power and influence he could wield over Odin. He'd pushed Loki onto the fine upholstered couch and Loki had lain down under him, unresisting.  
  
It had not hurt -- at least, not much -- but it was unpleasant, to say the least. The man had gloated over him, whispering filthy insults into his ears in time with his thrusts. Loki let them pass as if unheard. He hadn't quite been able to feign enthusiasm at the act -- maybe someday, when he was a better liar -- but at the least, he had not offered any complaint. That seemed to be all the man cared about, anyway.  
  
The next day the ambassador swore his fealty to Odin and pledged his support in battle against the dark elves. It was a great triumph, and all the court was pleased. Loki felt smug, accomplished, proud of what he'd made happen. He congratulated himself at being subtle and clever, told himself over and over how pleased Odin must be with him, how very worthy and valuable he was turning out to be.  
  
It helped to quiet the feeling, which he could not quite shake, that he was worth less than nothing at all.  
  
Remembering the Vanir delegation makes Loki feel uneasy and restless, although he isn't entirely sure why. It should count as a triumph, should it not? Instead he finds himself antsy for his next task; the sooner he is put back in action, the sooner he can put it out of his mind. He needs tasks, missions to fulfill and puzzles to keep his mind occupied. He needs to prove his value to his father, to Asgard. He needs to be worthy.  
  
So he leans over the corner of the table to address his father, pitching his voice low so as not to carry too far beyond the two of them. "The Svartalfheim delegation certainly has been making a pest of themselves this time around, haven't they?" he says.  
  
Odin grimaces. "That would be putting it lightly," he says.  
  
Loki knows it is, but he's not going to come out and say   _to his mother's face_  that the dark elves just tried to implant her with a curse of gibbering madness. He keeps his attitude light and his voice airy as he asks, "Wouldn't it be better if they... weren't here?"  
  
What he means to say, and knows Odin will hear, is: _would it be better if I killed them all, Father?_  
  
Odin sighs, and a wistful look flickers briefly across his face before he smooths it into carefully-masked courtesy. "Would that it were that simple, my son," he says. "But so long as they continue these endless antics of diplomacy and negotiation and attempted blackmail, that is another day they are not girding for war. Better to have them here, insulting us to our faces, than preparing to launch a dagger into our backs."  
  
Loki frowns; slipping a dagger into their backs is exactly what the dark elves are trying to do, as far as he can tell. But Odin is wise, and has managed negotiations with Svartalfheim for thousands of years; it's not Loki's place to question him now.  
  
Abruptly Loki feels far too overheated, dizzy and ill. If he could he would excuse himself, depart early to rest in his chambers, but duty keeps him chained to his seat -- he cannot abandon his family now, leave them uncovered to whatever cruel cunning the dark elves devise. His head is swimming and the knot of foul magic he swallowed earlier is a burning lump in his throat and chest, rendering it impossible to choke down any of the fine food; he limits himself to occasional small sips of wine, pushing the food around on his plate.  Thor doesn't notice, all too occupied with regaling to his seatmates some of the cruder jokes he learned from his partying earlier, and Odin has more important matters to worry about. Frigga, however, notices his reticence and leans towards him, worry in her soft blue eyes.  
  
"Something wrong, sweetling?" she asks quietly. "You aren't eating."  
  
"I am not hungry tonight, Mother," he lies easily, a soothing deflection that rolls of his tongue like honey. "Perhaps the presence of these dreadful guests is putting me off my appetite."  
  
She frowns sternly, but worry flickers under her voice. "Should you retire early, then, Loki? Do you need to visit the healers?"  
  
"No!" Loki denies hastily, his face heating dully at the thought. He hates when Frigga coddles him, treats him like a fragile child. In his youth he took sick easily, and spent more time in the healer's hall than out of it; but he is a man now, and he hasn't needed to lie down under the healer's care in years. He's made sure of it.  
  
"Now, sweetling, you know how you get headaches," Frigga fusses.  
  
"I do not have a headache!" That   _is_  a lie, and a blatant one; a tight band of pain wraps itself around his skull, sending lances of pain across his temples with every beat of his heart. But Thor's attention has been drawn to their conversation, and he watches with open, maliciously grinning delight.  
  
"Oh ho, is my little brother so fragile as all that?" he chuckles. "So much so that a single cup of mead is enough to send him stumbling to bed like a fainting damsel?"  
  
"Thor," Frigga says reprovingly, and he makes an exaggerated face of contrition.  
  
"Sorry, Mother."  
  
The air of the great hall is too hot, too stifling; under his breastbone, the curse pulses with its own malevolent heartbeat, burning hot and painful. Loki swallows hard against it, against the faint scalding taste of bile in the back of his throat. He needs to get away from here, to get to his chamber where he can take care of this before he ends up making a spectacle of himself in front of everyone.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the Svartalfheim delegation departing, their table clear. The feast is beginning to wind down at last; no new food or drinks are being brought out. Odin will stay for hours yet, dealing out policy and strategy with friends and allies, but the excruciating dinner of state is over.  
  
Normally Loki would stay too, listening in on Odin's council and prepared to offer his services wherever necessary, but tonight -- Loki rises, more unsteadily than he would like, and gives a short bow to his parents. "My King, my Queen," he says formally, "please excuse my departure. I will see you again on the morrow."  
  
Thor sniggers at him again as he turned towards the door; without needing to look, he lashes out a serpent-quick hand and slaps his brother upside the head.

 

* * *

  
  
  
Loki gets to his rooms and closes the heavy wooden doors behind him, leaning against them with a feeling of relief. He draws in a deep breath, reveling in the sensation of having come to asylum.  
  
This is his bedroom and his library, his workshop and his apothecary. All the servants have long since been chased away, and know better than to venture near lest the wards he's worked upon the walls and doors react in an untimely manner. This does mean that Loki has to do all of his own cleaning and laundry, but that doesn't bother him nearly as much as it would his brother. Thor treats his own room and his own possessions as casually as he does anything, scattering clothes or gear this way and that and leaving them for the maids to pick up, or bringing food or drink into his rooms and spilling them carelessly everywhere. No doubt it would come as a rude shock to him if the messes ever stopped miraculously clearing themselves up after him.  But Loki has always been tidy-minded and meticulous, and keeping his rooms in order doesn't bother him nearly as much as the prospect of other people poking around in his private things.  
  
Loki activates the locks -- both physical and his own, more subtle and arcane, invisible -- and walks across the room towards his bookcases, yanking open the collar of his tunic as he goes. The cool air of his private sanctuary washes over his fevered skin, damp and soothing and redolent of magic.  
  
He stands in front of a particular section of bookcase, the leatherbound covers lining up in rows as precise as ranks of soldiers. Loki can't help but smile a little at the sight of them, so neat, so _undisturbed;_   anyone who knew  him ought to know that no _true_  bookshelf of his could look so pristine and stately.  
  
Loki takes a deep breath and reaches out, both with his hands and also with the instinctive, invisible part of him through which his magic flows. He touches two particular spots on the casing, and there is a hollow, echoing click as the illusion falls away and the large wooden cabinet swings outwards.  
  
He lowers it carefully into place, workbench and commissary all at once, and casts a familiar, appraising eye over the rows of glass and metal flasks. This is where he conducts most of his experiments, combining recipes and spells he learned from his books with ideas and curiosities of his own. Some are still experimental, but some -- his hands wander to a row of glass bottles, wax-stoppered and color-coded -- are simply functional, tried and tested.  
  
He needs something that will quell the hostile magic of the curse he bears, something that will dampen and bind it -- and also, something that will dull the pain. The latter is easy; there is a row of ten tiny red crystal vials lined up neatly, ready for use. Loki cracks open the wax stopper and gulps it down without hesitation, as he has done many times before. He closes his eyes and leans against the cool stone of the wall, taking deep breaths as he waits for it to kick in.  
  
Of all the things he's learned in the past years, the knowledge to treat and medicate himself without needing to resort to the healer's hall is the most valuable. His mother had been right; when he was young, he had been prone to bouts of wracking illness, sudden fits that would leave him overcome with fever and short of breath until he thought he must surely die. He knew it worried both of his parents greatly, and that Eir had been mystified as to the cause of the chronic episodes.  
  
But his brother was also right, in a way. Loki had quickly learned that a trip to the healer's hall would relieve him of whatever unwanted obligation or duty he did not feel much like attending to, and he had equally quickly learned how to feign the signs of illness that would guarantee sympathetic fussing and a reprieve from tedious lessons.  
  
Thor had, eventually, picked up on the fact that he was faking it some of the time -- inevitable, really, when he would bounce back up as soon as their mother's back was turned and slip out to join Thor on some grand adventure. But he had then decided that Loki must be faking weakness _all_  the time, and as they grew older and clashed more often, he would taunt Loki about his frequent trips to the healer's hall. He would call Loki a fraud and a coward, and Loki came to hate it so much that he refused to go to the healer's hall _ever_ , even when the sickness was not feigned. The fact that his trips to the healers ceased entirely as he grew older only served to convince Thor that it had been a lie the whole time, and he never missed an opportunity to needle and jeer if Loki showed signs of his 'fits.'  
  
But Loki has no need of the healers' services any longer. He is not exactly a master healer, himself -- that would take far more time and single-minded devotion than he cares  to spend on it, when he is really just as interested in developing poisons of his own -- but he has learned enough to doctor himself, to brew the potions and poultices that hid all symptoms of illness from view. And when the time came that Loki began to serve the house of Aesir -- to draw into himself the wounds and insults and poisons of their enemies -- it was a simple enough matter to treat himself for those, as well.  
  
So he does tonight. He takes a deeper breath and straightens up as the cool relief of the anaesthetic sweeps through him. His headache eases, as does the feeling of sweltering heat in his limbs, and the acid pain in his chest and stomach dulls to a faint throbbing. This is merely a palliative, of course; he will need to do something to nullify the corrosive effects of that spell so that he can keep it contained within him.  
  
Loki raises his eyes and hands, fingers twitching slightly in the air as he puts his busy mind to the problem at hand. Now... what will be best...?  
  
There is little margin for error in these experiments, for Loki has no guinea pigs but himself; if he miscalculates too badly, he may end up poisoning himself even beyond his impressive tolerance. But there is little danger of that tonight, for all he seeks is a nullifying agent; the only trick will be making sure that whatever he takes for it does not affect the source of his own power as well.  
  
It is a thin line to walk, a tightrope in the dark, but despite himself Loki feels giddy with excitement and satisfaction as he applies himself to the task.  



	2. Chapter 2

  
  
The dark elf delegation leaves the next week, and things go back to normal. That's a relief for Loki after running himself ragged during their visit; keeping constant watch on the dark elves and tracking their movements through the palace, while being on edge all the while to watch for any attack against his family.  
  
He resumes his usual surveillance of life at court in Asgard -- watching from the shadows as factions bickered and split, forged and re-forged alliances. Beyond the eternal, dazzling glitter on the surface, Loki pokes and pries and sneaks his way into hidden corners, ferreting out every dirty little secrets.   
  
He learns that Geifjun, whose courtship with handsome Vidar has the court all a-swoon with romance, is accepting gifts of jewels from him while entertaining young boys in her bed at night. He learns that Freyja, their cousin from the Vanir, stole a valuable necklace from the queen and blamed one of her maidservants for the theft, causing the girl to be flogged and banished. He learns that Bragi had lied when he claimed he had lost his axe on the battlefield against the frost giants, during their last desperate clash with the jotunn on Midgard; instead Bragi fled from the battle without a scratch, and hid his axe under a stone in the Downward Fields so that no one would know of his shame.  
  
A younger, more naive Loki might have been shocked at these discoveries, shocked to learn that the gods and goddesses who had surrounded him all his life -- whom he'd always looked up to -- could be so petty and venal when others' backs are turned. Instead, he's simply amused by their little follies, the terror and desperate lengths they will approach to keep from ever being found out -- and yet, Loki has learned their secrets.  
  
Not that he ever plans to use any of the things he learns, of course -- not unless it ever becomes a threat to Asgard. But knowledge is power, and Loki means to accumulate as much of it as he can. Life at court goes on, in its balls and feasts and little scandals, but at least for the time being all is well.  
  
Well, but for one detail. The malevolent spell he swallowed the week before -- the one he had intercepted, which had been intended for his mother -- is still with him, and its hateful presence seems to grow with each passing day. He had thought it like a seed, when he first saw it, and he is turning out to be more right than he would have liked; what started as a weak flutter under his fingers is building in strength to an urgent thrum. It burns like a hot coal in his chest, and when it stirs it sends out sharp stabbing pains through his stomach and lungs every time he breathes.  
  
At the moment it is bound and quiet, wrapped around with his own magic, chained with potions and spells within him. More than once in the past few days he's considered coughing it up, expelling it and breaking the spell apart once and for all -- but even in the privacy of his own chambers there would be no way that people would miss the ruckus it caused. Not unless he can arrange for a better stage, isolated and well-warded... perhaps somewhere in the caverns deep beneath the palace, or even on another realm of the realms? He'll have to see.  
  
In the meantime he has it under control, has everything under control, except that he is running through his store of pain-relieving potions faster than he would like. Loki had felt that ten of them at a time was more than sufficient for any wound or illness he might bear, but this is a pain that does not pass, that grows more intense by the day. He ran through his store of potions _and_  through all of the reagents he has on hand to brew more, and has filched as many from the healer's stores as he safely can without being discovered, or else strip _them_  of their resources to tend injured Asgardian warriors.   
  
If this goes on much longer, Loki is going to need to take a trip to Alfheim to gather more of the ingredients for his potions. Perhaps he could combine that with an opportunity to safely rid himself of this affliction at the same time? If he can plan it correctly...  
  
A harsh caw startles Loki out of his thoughts, followed by a scuffling and flapping of feathers. He looks up from the volume he's had open in his lap, staring blankly without making sense of the words, and sees a crow land on his windowsill, muttering and mantling to itself.  
  
Normally, Loki's magical defenses should have prevented anything from entering his chambers uninvited, even through the windows; but he recognizes this particular crow. It is Huginn -- Thought --  one of his father's familiars, who perches at Odin's shoulders during feast and eats crumbs off his plate. Huginn and his brother, Munin, often serve the Allfather as his eyes and ears -- and voice -- to reach in places he cannot.  
  
The crow cocks its head at him, looking at him with one bright eye. "Loki," it caws, and the voice that comes from its black beak is scratchy but recognizable. "Thank the fates, you are here."  
  
"Father?" Loki says, rising from his seat. "What is it, what has happened? Do you need me?"  
  
"Great hall," the bird croaks; it is a wise bird, but speaking in the tongues of man is not easy for it. "Meet you there soon." It drops from his windowsill, wings unfolding as it does so, and in a flutter of black feathers and wingbeats it is soon out of sight.  
  
Loki does take a moment, before he goes, to prepare himself for any eventuality: wards in his clothes, poison in his pockets, daggers in his sleeves. He frowns at the knives as he slides them home, and wishes again that Odin had saw fit to gift him with weapons forged for him, like he had commissioned Mjolnir for his brother Thor. His daggers are serviceable enough, but there was a reason most of the weapons whose names are known throughout the Nine Realms  are magical in nature; normal, mundane steel tends not to hold up very well against Aesir armor (or skin, for that matter.) These knives are little more than tableware in Asgard; better than going barehanded, but not much. They will not help him much in a fight.  
  
 _And isn't that the point?_  he scolds himself. _If Odin wanted you to do battle, he would have given you the tools for it! Let Thor get into fights, your duties lie elsewhere..._  
  
He takes a deep breath, settles his tools and clothing more carefully against his skin, and sets out for the great hall to see what tasks his father has for him.  
  
He finds Odin in the great hall with his general Tyr at his right shoulder, a shimmering map of Asgard spread out over one of the large tables, and a grim expression on his face. "What news, father?" he says breathlessly; he tries to pretend that it is excitement that has winded him, and not the flight from his quarters down here, his breathing fire around the poison in his chest. His eyes fall on the panoramic map of Asgard, and the clues begin to fall in around him. To the west of the great city at the heart of Asgard, falling away towards the edge of the world, are scattered a hundred glowing red lights. Concentrated in a formation that can only mean one thing...  
  
"War," Tyr grunts; his craggy face is set in grim lines. "The _dökkálfar_  have broken the treaty, curse their eyes. They came not over the Bifrost, but using some cunning magic of their own, and their numbers are in the thousands."  
  
"Loki." Unexpectedly, Odin turns from his intense perusal of the map before him to greet his son, reaching out to clasp him firmly on the shoulder. "I am gladdened to find you still here, and safe. I feared what might have become of you."  
  
"Become of me? Why?" Loki glances around, and an uneasiness starts in the pit of his stomach -- cold ice to counter the sullen heat -- when he realizes whom he does _not_  see at this gathering. "Father -- where is Thor?"  
  
Odin sighs, and Loki is able to see past the anger, anger at this invasion of their territory, anger at the treachery of the dark elves, to what lies beneath -- fear. "When the first of the _dökkálfar_  began appearing near world's edge, we assumed it at first to be another raiding party," he said. "Thor took a group of his friends and rode out to confront them, to drive them off. By the time their true numbers -- and intentions -- became apparent, it was too late. He did not consult me, I didn't even realize he had gone until --"   
  
He cuts himself off, teeth clenching as though biting the words -- a spasm of furious grief wracks his features, for the moment not the anger of a king, only of a father. For a moment Loki feels in perfect symphony with Odin; shocked disbelief, angry exasperation at Thor for his recklessness, fear for what might become for his brother. But his next words nearly stop Loki's heart.  
  
"I feared at first that he had taken you with him, and I would be missing two sons instead of one. Perhaps if he had approached you with this mad scheme, you would have been able to talk some sense into him."  
  
He could not have phrased himself any more clearly to make Loki feel his failure; that he could have, _should have,_  stopped this; should have seen it coming, should have put a stop to Thor's recklessness before it got out of hand. Because if he could not do that, if he could not provide counterbalance to his brother and keep his family safe, then what good was he?  
  
"Have we any word from the war camp?" he asks, forcing the stiff words from his mouth. "Is my brother all right? Does he --"   
  
"Most likely he yet lives," Tyr replies, when Odin stays silent. "But if so, he is captive. The dark elves would not pass on the opportunity to gain such a valuable hostage."  
  
"Hostages," Odin says, his voice and expression once more under cool control. "He took with him those three friends of his; Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun. Oh, and one other -- the Lady Sif Lieffsdaughter. She has aspirations of being a warrior these days, I hear."  
  
Loki knows he ought to be concerned for the poor girl, led astray by Thor's folly, but he can only make one thought known in his mind: _Thor asked a_ maiden _to accompany him into battle, but he didn't ask_ me?  
  
"This has come upon us too sudden; we had no warning," Odin says heavily. "It will be some time before the army can gather, before we will be prepared to strike. We must rely on the walls and defenses of Asgard to protect us from our enemies' aggression until that time, but I cannot spare a division of men to attempt a rescue on Thor. No doubt he is held in the most heavily defended part of the camp, and to attack directly them would be to force their hand."  
  
And Loki understands. Why Odin called him here. What Odin requires of him.  
  
Odin wants him to go rescue Thor, of course. How could he have expected anything different? He must protect his family. Odin cannot spare an army, and so he will send Loki -- Loki, to walk alone and unarmed into a camp of a thousand bloodthirsty dark elves, to somehow find Thor and his friends wherever they are being held, free them from their bonds, and fight their way back to Asgard.  
  
"Yes, father," he murmurs, and turns to go get ready.

* * *

 

  
Back in his chambers, he changes into his working clothes -- dark green and charcoal grey, for it is far easier to hide in the shadows if you do nothing to distinguish yourself from them.   
  
If he's to infiltrate the dark elves' camp, he'll need some knowledge of where he's going. Loki retrieves a wide, shallow pan from among his belongings, and carefully fills it to the brim with water.   
  
He blows gently across the surface of the water, freezing it solid in moments. That particular trick hadn't come from his book of spells; he'd worked it out himself a while back, and was rather proud of it. On the perfectly smooth, still surface of the ice he sketched the relevant runes, and then watched as the frost-white surface darkened to black and then cleared to show him a view of the dark elves' camp.  
  
He surveys the camp carefully, noting the position of the mess tent, the supplies, the general route of the patrols. He finds his brother and his friends, and a knot of pain in his stomach he had almost stopped noticing eases as he reassures himself that Thor is alive and (mostly) unharmed. They have put his brother inside a sturdy, metal cage, which would amuse Loki at any other time but now only worries him. His friends sit nearby, under the careful eye of the guards; their hands are bound, but their feet are not. Of course, Loki thinks; their loyalty ensures that they would not even try to escape without their prince.  
  
Once he has a good idea where he's going, Loki releases the scrying spell and lets the vision fade. He prepares a spell that will take him to the edge of the woods, where the cleared ruin of the army encampment begins --  
  
\--And pain explodes within his chest, so fierce and molten that he is literally knocked off his feet, barely catching himself on the edge of the desk. The curse that he carries within his torso bursts into new, malicious life, lashing and stabbing into his stomach and cuts and lungs with cruel tendrils. He can feel it, almost _see_  if within his chest, a pulsing ball of molten fury that eats away at the walls of his stomach like a burning coal, swelling fit to burst right out of his ribcage and spew its hatred all over the walls and floors.  
  
He is hanging on to the edge of his desk for dear life as he struggles to contain it once more, to wrap the curse in sheets of smothering magic, to force it back down. Slowly, as the sensation of seething white-hot agony dies down, he realizes his mistake: It is his own magic that keeps the curse quiescent within him. If he draws on that magic for any other purpose, he weakens that binding and gives the malevolent spell an opportunity to break free.  
  
Minor spells like the scrying and his cloaking spells don't seem to be a problem -- they are small things, barely cantrips -- but it seems like teleportation, along with any truly effective offensive magic -- is completely out of the question.  
  
Very well. Loki grits his teeth. He will _walk_  to the dark elves' encampment.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the confusion that accompanies the mustering of troops, it's easy for Loki to slip out. He draws the shadows around himself, cloaking himself from view so that no one will stop him and enquire of his purpose. It's a long and tiring walk through the woods to where the dark elves have camped, every breath rasping like fire in his lungs; he's forced to stop and rest within a hundred yards of the outermost sentinels, that his feverish panting does not give him away.  
  
When he steps forth once more, though, it is almost too easy; the cloaking spell works just as perfectly to hide him from the eyes of the dark elves as it did back is Asgard. No one stops him or even turns to look at him as he strolls right past the sentries. Loki walks through the camp cloaked in shadow, hidden from their sight, and tries not to feel   _too_  much of a sense of godlike power.   
  
He doesn't really have a plan; what he has is more of an intention. Find Thor, get out, get back home. He learned years ago not to make plans, since they tend to fall apart when things inevitably go off the rails. It is better to ride the chaos, to take each opportunity as it comes and turn each new disaster to your own advantage.   
  
So he studies the soldiers of the dark elf army through shadow-veiled eyes, and his fingers twitch under his sleeves as he tries to find the loose threads to pull so that it will all unravel. Now... what would be best...?  
  
It seems, from the different styles of weapons and different colors of armor, that this camp isn't just one army; it's two, thrown hastily and somewhat uneasily together at the last moment. He catches snatches of conversations, fragments of names: Lord Bladtheri. Baron Sarvi. He recognizes the names, faintly, from his history lessons as a pair of _dökkálf_ princes who have been feuding over the same mountain valley for going on ten thousand years now. It looks like they have put their differences aside, though, in order to combine their forces for this attack.  
  
But it seems like such a legacy of blood is not so easily laid to rest; the two armies mesh uneasily, tensions flaring whenever they're forced to interact. He can work with that.  
  
Loki spots a likely victim, an officer in fine embroidered red and white just sitting down to mess with his back turned towards the shadows. He's armed with a dagger at his hip, its hilt canted out to the side as he leans forward; Loki ghosts up behind him and, with fingers light as a breeze, slides the weapon from its sheath.  
  
He glances down at the blade as he retreats towards the tent flap. It is a fine weapon, custom-made and with the owner's name inscribed in runes across the hilt. Excellent.  
  
He probably won't have long until the theft is discovered by its owner, but he doesn't need very long: just long enough to find another officer dressed in similar finery, only in the colors of blue and black. Sarvi's man is momentarily alone, taking a moment behind the sleeping tents to piss in privacy, and that spells his doom as Loki steps up behind him, grabs him around the neck for silence, and drives the fancy dagger between the ribs of his back.  
  
The elf jerks in his arms, dies, and falls with barely a gurgle, and Loki shudders slightly as he rubs his damp and sticky hands on his cloak. There's no chance to clean himself, nor change his clothes; he'll just have to be careful not to be seen. More careful.  
  
He really, really does not want to be seen; the dark elves do not like spies. Not that any of the peoples of the Nine Realms do, for skulking about in the shadows is a cowardly and dishonorable alternative to honest battle; but the dark elves are more brutal in their punishments than most. Loki recalls hearing stories -- not just stories, _histories --_  of a man expelled from Svartalfheim for spying; but before they turned him out, they had cut off his fingers that he might not write of what he'd seen, and sewn together his lips so that he could not speak of what he'd learned.  
  
That story had mesmerized and horrified young Loki, lingering in his memory far out of proportion to the original tale. He had always had a vivid imagination, and stayed up late at night more than once shuddering in fear at the thought of it; as much for the prospect of being trapped in himself, unable to speak or write, as the cringing horror of the sharp needle piercing his skin.   
  
And what if he were caught here, what rescue would come to save him? He _is_  the rescue; if Odin cannot launch a raid to save Thor, how much less could he do it for Loki?  
  
So he won't get caught. Fine.  
  
He brings the shadows back around him and steals quickly away, before the man's fellows can miss him for long enough to come looking. Once Sarvi's man is found dead with the blade of one of their so-called allies in his back, the distrust between the two camps should flare into violence. They might figure it out eventually, or they might not -- but Loki is willing to bet that Bladtheri's man will resist being taken into custody for quite a while. In the meantime...  
  
His memory of the general layout of the camp points him in the direction of the supply tents; once he draws close, his nose guides him the rest of the way. In the bright sun of Asgard the canvas structures send out a heavy perfume of hot leather, oil, the coppery taste of metal, and a faint sour note of wine turning to vinegar.   
  
There are guards  posted at each corner of the supply tents, and no wonder, for provisions are the foundation on which any army marches. Two at the entrances, and one at each corner, keeping each other in sight at all times -- there is no way that Loki could take them out, but that is just fine with him. He simply walks by them, close enough to touch, hidden by the shadows.  
  
Just out of sight of the guards, he reaches out and snatches a lantern from its niche by the wall. It falls under his cloak of shadows, dousing the light, and he is left in the darkness of the supply tent. That does not bother him; he breathes deeply, sorting out the myriad scents in the shadowed spaces and feeling his way carefully across the crates and bundles. He passes by crates of grains, barrels of water, bundles of sharp-fletched arrows.  
  
At last the sharp, pungent smell leads him to what he was looking for: cloth-wrapped, cord-tied bundles of napthene wax. It has many uses in an army camp, everything from metalworking to medical disinfectants to food preparation. But those are secondary -- mostly what napthene wax is good for is catching fire, and burning with a bright and near unquenchable flame. The dark elves have brought enough of it with them to burn this entire forest down.  
  
There was a reason, of course, why they kept any sources of open flame far away, and why the lamps kept by the guard posts are carefully constructed so that they cannot tip over or easily break open; the flame will go out even if they are kicked. It would be a terrible shame, after all, if a blaze were to catch in the heart of their supplies.  
  
Five minutes later he passes invisibly by the guards again, walking with a little more haste; he should have a few minutes before the careful blaze he set really takes hold, but he would rather be away from here by then.   
  
Two distractions, one on either side of the camp, and the captives being held at the back. He can already hear the commotion starting from the officer's mess, where the death of the unfortunate Sarvi officer has no doubt been discovered. He walks a little faster; he needs to be in place before it all starts to fall apart.  
  
Loki discovers his brother right where the vision of the ice mirror had shown him; a barren, fire-cleared ring of ground, with the charred stumps all that remained of the trees that had once grown here. The Aesir prisoners are kept out in the open, distrustfully watched by half a platoon of guards -- blue and black, Loki notes, Sarvi's men. Most likely they had been the ones to run Thor and his companions into the ground in the first place, and thus the prince's men are given the honor -- and burden -- of keeping them contained.   
  
So far.  
  
Thor is looking magnificently sulky, sitting cross-legged in the metal crossbar cage they have put him in; there must be some enchantment worked on it, Loki guesses, to keep his strength contained. There is also a set of rune-carved shackles around his wrists, the same as the other prisoners -- Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral, Loki recognizes, and a pale-faced girl he guesses must be the lady Sif. They look variously sullen, apprehensive, guilty, or frightened, but not -- as far as Loki can tell -- in any great pain. He sees bruises, and some blood which is old, but nothing bright and flowing, no limbs favored or wounds held close against the body.  
  
Good. Loki breathes again.  
  
A part of him is tempted to slip in close and whisper to them, reveal his presence and promise that help is at hand. He discards the notion almost immediately -- all it would take was one slip on their part to give the game away. He knows his brother well enough to know that he is not capable of subtlety or dissimulation, and Volstagg and Fandral are cut from the same cloth. Hogun? Perhaps, but he is in the middle of the row, surrounded by dark elves on all sides. Sif is on the end, but he does not know her temperament well at all. It isn't worth the risk.  
  
Loki lets his brother's friends fall from his attention again, and turns his focus instead on the guards. There are eight in the burnt-out ring itself, six more close to hand. A dozen more within shout or call. All of them bristling with armor and weapons, tense and trigger-happy and on edge for any sign of trouble from the prisoners.  He eases up under a shaded awning on the very edge of the clearing, hidden still in the shadows, and closes his eyes. He sharpens his hearing, focusing on the voices of each of the guards and letting the tones and rhythm of their sharp-voiced tongue fall into his ears.  
  
The soldiers do not seem to be soldiers of any great rank or prestige, nor -- listening to them talk among themselves -- any great mental acuity.  Their conversation mostly seems to revolve around the food and how much they do not care for like it, with grumbling from one or another about why they had come all the way to the forests of Asgard and were not dining on the sacred harts that ran through these woods.  They are still elaborating on this theme when the noise of steel clashing, shouting, and the heavy tramp of feet begins to swell from other parts of the camp. A shift in the wind brings the sharp stink of burning canvas across their clearing, which makes the guards pause uneasily in their grumbling, makes  the Aesir prisoners lift their heads, and makes Loki smile.  
  
Not too long after that, though, a horn sounds from much nearer, and a group of new soldiers -- these men led by a tall dark elf in a tabard of red and white -- approach. Loki draws back further into the shadows, well out of the way of anyone accidentally bumping into him, and watches them assemble.  
  
Loki was expecting this, more or less. After the trouble he'd kicked up in the mess tent and the supply tents, there were really only a few ways the dark elves could react. One possibility was that they would draw guards away from their Aesir prisoners in order to quell the disturbances; a desirable outcome, but not likely.  
  
The other possibility was that they would figure out quickly that their unseen troublemaker was either an Aesir or an ally of theirs -- what else could be expected, when they had invaded Asgard? It was not hard to guess that their enemy would make an attempt to free the prisoners, including Odin's own son Thor; and if so, the prudent thing to do would be to double the guard around him.  
  
Which is just fine with Loki.   
  
The small company arrives, and one tall dark elf in a fastidiously neat red-and-white uniform strides out ahead of the others. He has an expression of grim purpose on his dark face, and the dozen or so warriors behind him are tense and edgy and keep their hands near their weapons. He fetches up on the edge of the burned ring and rakes his eyes across the prisoners -- those strange eyes pass over the space of shadows where Loki lurks, and see nothing. "Hail, Hagrim," he says, brusque and clipped to the very minimum of courtesy.  
  
As they approach, one of the guards rises -- his clothes are nothing like so neat or fine as the other man's, but he does seem to have enough decoration on his collar to show some amount of seniority.  "Hail yourself," he replies. "What brings Gamel the Cruel slumming to this part of the encampment?"  
  
"Security," Gamel replies curtly. "I've come to ensure that the Aesir prisoners are properly guarded."  
  
The other dark elves don't miss the contemptuous emphasis on the word _properly._  "What do you mean, properly?" Hagrim asks suspiciously. "Are you suggesting that my whole company of men is not enough to baby-sit five unarmed Aesir prisoners?"  
  
"These treasures are being _closely_  guarded," one of the dark elf guards croons. He's sitting closest to Sif -- disturbingly close, even, and as he speaks he reaches out a hand to stroke over her cheek. She stiffens, but is constrained to make no reply, though her eyes burn with fear and fury.   
  
The side of Gamel's mouth turns up, a curling smile of perfect scorn. "I would not trust Hagrim Half-wit and his band of beef-witted mongrels to guard a child's rock collection, let alone valuable prisoners," he says.  
  
This stirs a mutter of resentment among Sarvi's men; the lieutenant standing behind Hagrim looks outraged enough that two others must restrain him from throwing himself bodily at the new company.  Loki stuffs his hand in his mouth, biting down to keep from laughing aloud as tears stream from his eyes. Really, why do they even need him here?  
  
"Why is the security of Aesir prisoners suddenly of such interest to Lord Bladtheri?" Hagrim is saying suspiciously.  
  
"We have reason to believe that the camp has been infiltrated by an Aesir spy," Gamel says, and Loki winces a bit despite his invisibility. "Fires have been set --"  
  
"So one of you clumsy oafs knocks over a cook-pot, and you see Aesir spies everywhere!" Hagrim's lieutenant scoffs.  
  
"This is no laughing matter," Gamel says coldly. "One of your own men, Captain Rodin, has been slain. As little as you care for anything other than your own rutting amusements, I would think that at least would concern you!"  
  
That sounds like the opening he needs. Loki raises his head and calls out, "That's not what I heard! I heard he was stabbed in the back by a Bladtheri coward!"  
  
He speaks not in the All-tongue, but in the common language and regional accent of the dark elves; and he has pitched his voice carefully so that it sounds like it's coming from the back of the crowd of Sarvi men. They stir uneasily as the accusation flies, but their suspicious hatred is directed towards Gamel, not at the anonymous speaker.  
  
"It was Sjonnir's blade, yes," Gamel says impatiently, "but he did not wield it. He was two tents away at the time --"  
  
"Are we supposed to believe that?" one of Hagrim's men jeers loudly. "You fleshless cowards think you can murder our men and get away with it?"  
  
"Small loss if he had!" This time, Loki pitches his voice towards the back of the crowd of Bladtheri men, and roughens his voice in imitation of their regional accent. "What is one muddy Sarvi peasant more or less?"  
  
This elicits shouts of outrage from Hagrim's men. Gamel whips his head around with a scowl, but can't find the speaker. "There's no proof --" he starts to say.  
  
"What proof do we need besides the murderer's own knife?" Loki calls out. The rest of Hagrim's men clamor eagerly in agreement. "You think you can kill our men without qualms and then blame their deaths on the Aesir?  Goat-livered, pox-headed, sheep-suckling --"  
  
The barrage of insults is too much for Gamel's men, one of whom strides forward with steel  unsheathed. "Watch your mouth, bitch-wolf's son, or else Rodin will not be the only Sarvi dog to die this day!"  
  
Shouting erupts from both sides, loud enough that Loki couldn't get a word in even if he tried; Loki decides more encouragement is warranted. He finds a conveniently placed rock near to hand, and hurls it; it rebounds off the head of Gamel's lieutenant, momentarily staggering him. With a howl, he draws his sword and launches himself towards Hagrim, only to be intercepted by the Sarvi lieutenant. Gamel is bellowing for order, trying to pull his men apart -- at least until Hagrim, a fey grim on his face, tackles him face-first into the mud.  
  
Once the brawl is well underway, Loki regretfully abandons his post in the shadows and darts over to Thor's side, dropping to a crouch beside the lock. No doubt one of the dark elves out there in the brawl has the key, but Loki has no intention of wasting time to look for it; lockpicking is among the many skills he's spent time to master over the years.  
  
Of course it couldn't be that simple. Loki blows out a breath of frustration when he encounters the warning heat of a spell on the lock; a magical trap that will take some careful work to untangle. Worse yet, when he tries to reach for his magic to work with the lock, he can feel the acid burn of the curse in his chest beginning to kick up again. Even this small drain on his magics, it seems, is too much; he cannot disarm this lock and keep the cloak of shadows up at the same time.  
  
There's nothing else for it; he drops the spell and goes to work furiously at the lock. In the tumult of the full-on brawl between the two elven factions very few mark his abrupt appearance; he's crouched down halfway behind the cage, anyway. Thor notices, and his brother's back goes rigidly straight as he swivels his head to stare at Loki. Loki makes a frantic shushing motion with one hand, not looking up from where he is carefully teasing the locking spell apart with the other.  
  
He feels eyes on him and glances up for a moment, long enough to see the girl Sif staring across the open field at him, shock and disbelief on her face. Unfortunately, the clear line-of-sight from her to him is also shared by one of the guards who had somehow stayed out of the brawl -- the one who'd been pawing so grossly over Sif earlier. He starts to move, opens his mouth to sound the alarm -- until Sif's legs lash out and sweep him to the ground, and her elbow lands on his chest, momentarily silencing him. Loki redoubles his efforts on the lock, sweat slipping down his forehead and sliding down his back.  
  
Then the spell is loose and the lock clicks and turns and the door to the cage swings open. Thor's massive leg slams out, knocking the cage door not only open but off its hinges entirely: a moment later Thor himself bounds into the fray, a massive roar erupting from his chest as he charges heedlessly into battle.  
  
Loki sighs. So much for the plan of slipping quietly away in the confusion.   
  
"Stir yourselves, my friends!" Thor shouts, pulling a dazed-looking Fandral to his feet. He grabs the blond man's shackled wrists in his own, and with a heave of his mighty arms (and, to be fair, much better leverage) he wrenches the bonds apart. He quickly repeats the process with the others, and the five of them fall quickly into position with each other as they turn their attention to their dark elf captors. Well, former captors, soon to be victims; Hogun has even already picked up a sword somewhere. They fling themselves willingly into the melee; the two factions of dark elves have finally caught on to the real threat and ceased to fight each other, but it is too late.  
  
Loki does his best to proliferate the confusion on the part of their captors by sending out illusive copies of himself and his friends all over the scene of battle; thankfully it is a minor enchantment, although he won't be able to maintain his spell of invisibility at the same time. He steps between the shadows to appear at Thor's elbow. "Thor, is this really the time for this?" he says in a cordial voice, his tone cutting through the thumping of blows and ringing of steel.   
  
"Brother! Well met!" Thor whirls around to face him, cheerful and slightly crazed with the mania of battle. "Your aid is most timely! What is your plan for putting paid to these villains?"  
  
"I didn't really have a plan, actually," Loki admits. "I've just been sort of improvising."  
  
"Then let us improvise the end of this piddling army!" Thor suggests. Loki rolls his eyes.  
  
"In case you hadn't noticed, six unarmed warriors are _slightly_  under-equipped to take on the whole dökkálf army."  
  
"We need not be, if I had Mjolnir!" He thrusts out one big hand towards Loki, almost knocking him off his feet. "These shackles have some sort of sorcery on them, I cannot call my hammer to me. Can you not work your tricks on them to take them off of me, that I might smash my way to the center of the army and break its leaders?"  
  
Loki sets his teeth. "If that is your idea of a plan, then I will do no such thing," he says, "if only to keep you from attempting such a lunatic assault and dragging all your friends along with you. We need to get back home; Father is waiting for you."  
  
His brother had begun a hot retort at Loki's refusal to take off the bracers, but his expression turns to chagrin at the mention of Odin. "Very well," Thor says, though not without an almost childish pout. "Though I do regret leaving a battle unfought. Volstagg!" he bellows out. "To me! We will clear a path to safety. Hogun, Fandral, guard our flanks. Together we will carve our way to freedom!"  
  
Leaving Loki to tag along behind, as usual. He reaches into his sleeves and slides out one of his daggers, feeling ill-equipped for this melee.  
  
If he'd had Mjolnir in hand, Thor could probably have taken out everything within a half-mile radius without breaking a sweat; even without it, he and Volstagg charge across the charred ground with the unstoppability of a juggernaut. Hogun and Fandral follow close behind, stolen swords weaving and lashing out to prevent anyone from circling around behind them. Loki is about to follow them, when an unfamiliar scream cuts from behind him.  
  
It is Sif; the offensively intent guard whom she had silenced earlier has regained his feet and has locked her in a struggle. He has hold of her hair from behind, and is yanking her head around until her neck twists painfully; her hands, still encumbered, cannot reach behind her to throw him off. Loki runs back and throws himself into the fray, bringing his dagger up against the man's arm; unfortunately, he is wearing armor, and the blade not-unexpectedly turns and shatters. A snarl curls Loki's lips as he reaches into his sleeve for the other knife. There is no easy weak spot on which he can turn his weapon to make the man let go, and he does not have _time_  for this.  
  
So he darts in, quick as a shadow, and brings the knife up to cut Sif's hair instead, close to her head where the guard's mailed hand grips it. The dark elf loses his balance and stumbles backwards, gaping in disbelief, and Sif is now free to turn around and deliver a sideways roundhouse kick to his gut that sends him halfway across the clearing, crashing among the crates and tents.  
  
"Run!" Loki yells at her, but she's already running.  
  
The charred clearing is a mess, the prison become a battlefield; the escaping prisoners' path is littered with bodies, some bleeding and some still twitching. Sif stumbles past them like she's walking through a dream.   
  
"Are you all right?" he asks her. He wonders if she will weep. He did, during his first battle.   
  
Instead, she rounds on him, and although her eyes are wild there is only fury in her voice and expression. "You cut my _hair_  off!" she says, and despite the note of hysteria in her tone Loki can't help but feel this is sheer ingratitude.  
  
"I did you a favor," he snaps back. "If you truly mean to be a warrior, then you cannot afford such liabilities -- long hair only gives your enemy a convenient handle to grab when he closes with you. As you've discovered."  
  
"And what about _your_  hair, you hypocrite?" she hisses. "It's almost as long as mine -- was! And you, a man of Asgard!"  
  
"Do I look like a warrior?" he parries, stung. "It's only hair. It'll grow back. Get over it."  
  
"Yes, I -- yes." She takes a gulping breath, and the shaking in her hands calms a bit. After a long moment, silent between them as they strive endlessly to catch up with the others, she says, almost a whisper: "Thank you."  
  
Loki is so taken aback, so unused to receiving thanks, that it takes him a full minute to remember what he is supposed to say; then he manages an equally quiet "You're welcome."  
  
And then he can't spare the attention for anything but keeping up with Thor and the others.  
  
Once they cleared the edge of the encampment and are out of range of any bow-shot from the sentries, Thor and his friends become almost merry, shouting and even singing as they run. No doubt his brother is enjoying the freedom to stretch his legs once more.  
  
He'd almost manage to forget it while strolling about the dark elf encampment under the cover of shadows, but he is by no means in top condition. The knot of baneful magic in his chest pulses and burns, a pressure against his lungs and heart that refuses to abate. A stabbing pain in his side is rapidly growing to a sick agony that spreads throughout his gut, and he feels faint. He can get maybe half a breath with each gasp, and it is not enough to allow him to run tirelessly for miles the way the others can. Even on his best day he could never outrace Thor afoot, and he is by no standards at his _best._  
  
Sif notices that he has fallen behind, and turns to give him a worried look. "Are you all right?" she asks. "They will be coming after us soon. We cannot linger."  
  
"I   _know_ , " he snarls, his breath catching on a wheeze, and gathers his flagging energy to push his faltering feet forward. He stumbles -- a stupid, needless stumble on little more than a stick on the ground -- and Sif's hand flashes out to help catch him.  
  
Her hand meets the sticky, cooling warmth of blood, the splash on his clothes from where the Sarvi officer had bled on him, and her dark eyes widen.  "It's not mine," he gasps, but has not the breath to explain where it did come from.  
  
"Ho, brother!" Thor's voice rings out cheerfully from up the slope, where he and his friends have paused and turned to watch them. "This is no time for your dawdling! Have you been so neglecting your training that such a little jog through the woods is enough to tire you?"  
  
And there is nothing in the Nine Realms that could force Loki to admit to his brother how sick he really is, not after   _that_.  He can't spare the breath to reply; only lowers his head and sets himself grimly to keep running. He takes a deep, tearing breath, and tastes iron at the back of it.  
  
"Thor, get back here and use your strength give aid to our rescuer," Sif calls out unexpectedly from his side. "Your brother was wounded coming to my defense." And she raises her bloodied hand in proof.   
  
All at once, Loki decides he has forgiven Thor for taking Sif on this mad expedition in place of him. He hopes Thor will keep Sif as one of his comrades; maiden or no, she's worth more than the other three put together.  
  
Thor turns, and the expression on his face is almost worth it, even as blackness boils up in Loki's vision and he stumbles to one knee.  


* * *

  
  
The rest of the escape is something of a blur to Loki; he spends it being transported across the rest of Asgard in Thor's arms. His brother really can be gentle when he's feeling guilty and penitent about something; he did not dare sling Loki stomach-down over his shoulder, not with the blood staining his chest and belly hinting at a gut wound. Loki did not bother to disabuse him of this notion, so Thor is carrying him in his arms like a child or a damsel.   
  
Loki normally would be quite embarrassed about this, if he were not vastly enjoying the sight of Thor so chastened. The day's exertions -- both physical and magical -- have left him drained, and he drifts, turning all his attention towards binding the curse to sleep within him once more.   
  
And besides which -- it's been a long time since he had a chance to be so held by his brother, not since they were both much smaller. Since they became men, their physical contact has mostly consisted of manly warrior-punches to the shoulders, with Thor forgetting his own strength more often than most. He can't help but enjoy the sensation of being protected, of being carried as though he is a valuable treasure.  
  
When the golden walls of Asgard rise up about them once more, though, and he hears Thor's voice shouting for a healer, Loki comes back to himself with a jolt.  
  
"I don't need to see the healers," he gasps out, and tries to twist himself out of Thor's grasp. He doesn't need to, and more importantly, he doesn't _want_  to submit himself to a healer's attention; aside from any possible embarrassment, they have long skill and knowledge at perceiving hidden and past wounds. There are any number of things that Loki has no intention of letting them see; if nothing else, once faced with evidence of his own self-medication, they will know who has been pilfering from their stores.   
  
"But you are injured," Thor says, perversely clutching him tighter; he has a grip like an anaconda, Loki thinks. An   _affectionate_  anaconda.  
  
Loki vents a laugh. "Brother, if you had taken five seconds to actually look at what's in front of you, you would see that there is no rent in my clothes let alone any wound beneath them," he says, pulling the bloodstained tunic away from his skin in demonstration. "I am  _fine._  The blood is not mine. I slew a _dökkálf_  warrior on my way to freeing you; that is all. Surely you are not some green battlefield babe who lets the sight of a little blood sicken you?" he can't help but needle.  
  
Thor stares at him in shock. "No wound?" he says. He looks briefly and accusingly at Sif, who gives him a little 'how was I supposed to know?' shrug before ducking hurriedly out of the way through an archway. "But, but why did you not say so earlier? Why did you allow me to believe that you had been hurt?"  
  
"What, and pass up a free ride back here?" Loki can't resist the impulse to reach up and pinch Thor's bearded cheek. "Really, Thor, who knew that behind that blustery exterior hid a heart so soft and tender --"  
  
That is as far as he gets before Thor abruptly dumps him on his ass on the flagstones, and stomps away with his dignity puffed up around him like a cat. Loki lies where he's fallen, in the middle of a courtyard rapidly filling with his father's men, and laughs.   



	3. Chapter 3

  
By the time Loki has gotten his wind back, the sound of his brother and his father locked in a shouting match comes bursting into the courtyard. Loki grins and rolls to his feet, staggering a step or two before he regains his accustomed grace, and saunters towards the inner chamber.  
  
Apparently Odin has gotten past the 'crushing hug' stage and on to the yelling part. Thor is mostly concentrating on looking sullen and hangdog. Occasionally he tries to interrupt the ass-reaming with a "But it was not --" or "But I didn't --," but these feeble protests are rightly swept aside. Odin is in full-voice now, expressing his thoughts on the stupidity of a Prince of Asgard running full-tilt into an obvious trap and taking half a dozen of his friends down with him, while making cutting remarks about Thor's lack of strategic foresight.  
  
Loki leans against a pillar and folds his arms across his chest, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of Thor getting strips torn off his hide for his recklessness.  
  
Thor catches sight of him, and manages to catch a break in Odin's lecturing long enough to deflect him with a quick, "But, Father! What about Loki? He went to the enemy camp as well! If I am at fault to do so, surely he is as well?"  
  
Loki glares daggers at his brother, for a moment too outraged by the sheer cheek and ingratitude of this, and so misses his chance to defend himself. Odin turns his dark and steely glower on him instead. "And you, Loki!" he snaps. "Of all my sons, I thought you at least had more brains than this! I rely on you to be a steadying influence, perhaps to demonstrate some sanity, and instead you charge off with as little sense or preparation as Thor!"  
  
"I --" For a moment Loki just gapes, his face flooding cold and then hot with shock and humiliation. He cannot make sense of Odin's response, cannot grasp why Odin is saying these things, when he only did what Odin   _wanted him to do._   Why would Odin deny it now? Is he that concerned with keeping a pretense of innocence around others? Why? What is shameful about Loki outsmarting the dark elves and rescuing his brother? Or is he just criticizing Loki's methods, and not his ends? "I was not reckless!"  
  
"You walked into an enemy encampment blind and unarmed!" Odin snaps. "If the _dökkálfar_ had caught you skulking, they would have treated you far more carelessly than Thor. You know what they do with spies! Do you know what the past few hours were like for me, imagining you captured and in such straits? What else am I supposed to call that but recklessness?"  
  
 _What about courage?_ Loki wants to ask, but Odin is as hard to derail now as he was against Thor five minutes ago. "And then they would have had two hostages to hold in leverage against me, and I with neither of my sons to strengthen my arms in battle. What could possibly justify that sort of risk?" Odin continues relentlessly.   
  
"How about your son's life?" Loki snarled, goaded past the point of endurance. "Is that worth so little to you, All-Father?"  
  
Odin draws himself up in rage, lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl. Loki takes a quick breath, licks his lips, and says hurriedly, "Father -- please, be reasonable. Thor is rescued -- isn't that what you wanted?"   _Isn't that what you wanted of_ me?  
  
Odin lets out his breath slowly, and his anger seems to go with it, until he is less a primal avatar of fury and more of a father. "Of course I did," he says. "But I would have found some other way to secure his release -- some way that did not involve you risking your life, Loki. If I had wanted you to do such a thing, I would have   _asked_  you; and rest assured I would have equipped you with some better plan."  
  
Loki stands stunned, wordless and bereft, shaken down to his foundations. He wants to protest, question, shout a denial -- but for once in his life Loki Silvertongue can't find the words to wrap his mouth around.  
  
"Hold it," Odin growls, the bite back in his tone, and Loki jumps -- but the biting voice and accompanying glower are aimed at Thor, who was attempting to take advantage of his father's distraction to slink away. "I'm not done with you yet. This isn't half the matter of you putting your friends in danger, and your younger brother --"  
  
The rest of the lecture is lost on Loki's ears, as he makes his escape far more discreetly than Thor ever could. Normally he would stay and gloat in Thor's discomfiture some more, but he's too shaken, too frightened by those five simple words.  
  
 _I would have asked you..._  
  
Because if Odin is telling the truth -- and why would he lie, it's only Loki who lies -- then what does that mean for Loki?  
  
 _I would have asked you!_  
  
Odin had _never_  asked.  
  
Could it be -- is it possible that Odin _hadn't_  been giving Loki instructions all along? Loki had been so sure that he was reading the situation right, that Odin was speaking directly to him in veils and codes. Is it possible, is it even _conceivable_  that all those orders were no more than passing commentary, directed offhand to any audience, that Odin had not even particularly cared on whose ears they fell?  
  
But -- if Odin hadn't been giving him instructions, if Odin had never meant for him to do these things -- then why has he never _said_  anything? Because surely he must have known that Loki had been in the chamber that day with the gifts from the dark elf delegation. Surely he must know  that Loki lurks about the shadows of Asgard and seeks out secrets. Surely he must know that Loki went to that night to the Vanir ambassador's chambers...  
  
Odin knows. He _must_  know. He has Heimdall, the Gatekeeper whose vision is all-penetrating. He has the ravens, Huginn and Munnin, who can fly anywhere in the Nine Realms and observe all. Surely Odin knows.  
  
Anything else is too terrifying to contemplate.  
  
But if he knew what Loki was doing all along, and if he didn't want him to do such things... then why didn't he stop him?  


* * *

  
  
That night a feast is proclaimed in celebration of Thor's triumphant return from captivity, despite the frenzy that all the palace is thrown into by the hasty mobilization of the army. But the dark elves are showing no signs of attacking tonight -- their camp is in disarray, thanks to Thor's escape as well as a few gifts Loki left behind when he fired their supply tents. So, since they attack on the morrow, tonight they may as well feast.  
  
A feast when the dark elf delegation arrives, another when they leave. Another celebration when they return with an army in tow, and no doubt they will declare another one once the dark elves have been vanquished and thrown back to Svartalfheim. It has annoyed Loki on more than one occasion that his countrymen will take   _anything_  as an excuse to throw a party. He himself is not feeling anything like a festive mood, but since Thor's escape was engineered by him he can hardly miss his own party. Not, Loki notices, that anyone has mentioned   _his_   name in conjunction with tonight's revelry.  
  
Feeling in a vengeful mood, Loki tracks his brother down before the feast starts and picks a quarrel with him, still smarting from the way Thor directed Odin's wrath on him earlier today. The quarrel goes as it always does -- Loki insults Thor until his brother runs out of retorts and puts him in a headlock, Loki kicks his knees out from under him, and they both wind up on the floor. Loki's not really in a mood to continue the argument much further -- just being tipped to the floor was enough to jolt a sheet of fire through his chest and shoulders and neck -- but there is still one question that has been left unanswered.  
  
"Why did you take Sif with you on your misbegotten little adventure today?" he asks in aggravation.  
  
Thor, as usual, answers the wrong question entirely. "I wished to give her some feats of prowess to boast of, some true accomplishments to boost her stature. She is a fine warrior, despite being a maiden! If you would but roust yourself out of bed in time to come to the practice ring on more than a few occasions, you would have seen her. Graceful as a heron, quick as an adder, as fine and deadly as a steel braid -- ah! To see her move in combat, with her braid flying out behind her like a banner -- if there is one ill thing you have done today, Brother," Thor derails himself to chide Loki, "it is that you should not have cut her hair. She was very proud of those locks, and rightly so."  
  
Loki thinks Thor thoroughly deserves the punch to the kidneys that admonishment earned him. "If you dislike my technique, you might have gone to her aid yourself," he snarls. "But you miss my point, Thor. As usual. Why did you take _a  maiden_   with you on your adventures, and you _didn't take  me. "_ He hasn't got any problems with Sif Lieffsdaughter, actually he quite likes her, actually he likes her a great deal more than he does Thor right now, if only because Sif thanked him for his rescue and Thor didn't.  
  
"Oh." Thor looks chagrined, and avoids Loki's eyes. "Well -- the truth is that we did not want you to spoil our fun, Brother."  
  
Doesn't that just _figure._  
  
"Father is always going on about how he expects you to act as a restraining influence on me," Thor says, sounding hurt and put-upon by that development, as though Loki is any more happy about it than he is. "We thought -- we all agreed -- that if we had given you any hint of our doings, you would have put a stop to them, or told Father. You would have tried to convince us that such an expedition was foolishness."  
  
"And as much as it must gall you to give me opportunities to prove myself the smarter brother," Loki says through his teeth, "I would have been right."  
  
Thor looks sulky, but unrepentant. Loki draws in an aching breath.  
  
"I don't know what's more insulting, that you think I would snitch behind your back or that you actually think that having some wisdom and temperance on your side in a fight would be a liability," he says flatly. "Nevertheless, I did worry today, Thor. Do you have any idea what it felt like to have to admit to Father that I had no idea you had gone? Do me a favor and don't run off like that without me again."  
  
"Only if _you_  swear not to try to stop us," Thor shoots back. "Or ruin things."  
  
"I'm not going to make such a stupid --"  
  
"Swear!" Thor insists, and there's another bit of scuffling as Thor tries to twist Loki's arm up behind his back and Loki slips out of the hold. "Or I'm never telling you anything, again."  
  
Loki holds his hands up in surrender, backing away to a safe non-grabbable distance. "Very well, I swear that in the future when you come to me with a bone-headed, pox-livered idea for an expedition, you will have my full support." Thor is still looking stormy, so Loki adds on, "By my head and neck, I swear that I will do nothing to sabotage or try to dissuade you."  
  
He doesn't add to the oath that he won't tell Odin about such doings, because he's not   _stupid_.  Thor, fortunately, doesn't seem to notice. His expression brightens immediately, and he laughs and claps Loki on the shoulder. "It's good to have you back, Brother," he says cheerfully. "Now come! The festivities will start without us."   


* * *

  
  
The feast proceeded exactly as Loki had expected it would: when Thor makes his appearance the hall burst into thunderous cheers. Loki follows his brother to their usual places at the high table, although today his companions -- the warriors three and, for the first time, lady Sif -- accompany them.   
  
Despite the aura of familiarity, the hall is filled with an undercurrent of tense energy as the preparations for battle went on all around them; many places were empty, and messengers frequently race through and from the hall bearing messages or on other errands. Loki looks anxiously for his father, unsure whether he is eager or frightened to speak with him again -- but it turns out to be an unfounded waste of energy either way, as Odin is not present. Deep in planning with his generals, no doubt, while the younger Aesir play. Despite his absence the assembled Aesir present are not shy about enjoying themselves, shouting and laughing and feasting with abandon. This is Thor's party, and he revels in the spotlight as he always has.  
  
Loki finds himself dragged back into his usual habits, keeping a vigilant watch over any food and drink passed to the high table. He doesn't know what he will do if he finds any; he is already too knotted and worn to the edge of his endurance to take any more poison into himself now, especially with this newfound doubt about Odin's intentions. Thankfully, it is a moot question as he senses no harm -- but the constant tension keeps him from being able to relax and enjoy himself.  
  
After the first courses are served, the time comes for the heroes of the day to stand up before the hall and tell their exploits. It is the custom of Asgard for  accomplished warriors to relate their deeds in such a way, that the court poets might then take them and cast them in verse, to be added to the long store of epic ballads that retell their people's history.   
  
Thor and his friends go first, of course, starting at the moment they heard news of the first scouts arriving on Asgard. How they armed themselves and rode out immediately, intending to put paid to this raiding party before they had a chance to escape back to Svartalfheim. Their surprise and growing dismay when the numbers of assembled dark elves turned out to be far higher than they'd expected.   
  
His brother is a natural storyteller, playing up the drama and suspense of finding themselves surrounded, outnumbered and eventually cast down by the horde of enemies. Despite knowing full well how the story ends, Loki can't help but feel the tension and fearful suspense when the companions were captured and disarmed, Thor caged, Mjolnir taken from him.  
  
Then it is his turn to stand up and speak, telling the events from his point of view from the moment he'd heard his brother was captured. He speaks in a clear tone, his words concise and voice even, giving little hint as to what he might have been feeling at the time. His audience, as to be expected, is fully sympathetic to his desire to rescue his brother and their companions -- although less so to the methods of stealth and deceit that he'd employed to do so. They are unimpressed by his matter-of-fact account of the fires he'd set among the tents, and not at all interested in hearing the careful insults that he'd used to set the two factions of dark elves against each other. They do like hearing about how he killed the Sarvi captain using Sjonnir's knife, however, and he is called to repeat that part several times.  
  
By the time Loki sits down again, allowing Thor and his friends to resume the tale of their battle and escape, he is feeling exhausted and more than a little depressed. The Aesir have their ideas of what made grand adventure, fine tales, and they have little care for anything that fell outside of it. They want to hear tales of battle, of bravery in the face of a foe's weapon and the mighty swings of a weapon. Never mind how much courage Loki had needed to walk among the enemy unarmed, knowing the penalty if he were caught. Never mind the cleverness he had needed to engineer enough distractions for their escape; never mind the tactical advantages he'd gained for Odin's armies on the side. His people care for none of these things, and likely never will.  
  
His chest aches as though he'd been held underwater, gasping for a breath and inhaling only liquid. It's hard to tell how much of that pain is the poison, and how much is just him. All the pleasure and triumph he felt on his arrival back to Asgard has long since evaporated.  
  
Loki spends most of the rest of the evening brooding, toying with a goblet of wine that he has no intention of drinking. Thor deigns to notice him only once, to roar at him for his "woeful countenance" and chastise him for not eating, threatening to call on Frigga if Loki does not eat (which Loki considers base cheating.) He glares back and snaps insults, but Thor refuses to leave him be until Loki grudgingly chokes down a bite of food -- upon which, satisfied, Thor promptly turns back towards his friends and is happy to ignore Loki again.  
  
The one bite of food he's taken -- rich and heavy, saturated with grease -- roils in Loki's stomach like acid, and for a few moments he's honestly not sure if he'll be able to keep it down. When was the last time he ate? Not in the grand hall for some time, he knew; there might have been a plate of bread and cheese brought to him in his chambers some time since the dark elf delegation left, but he's not sure exactly when.  
  
Part of his sickness might be hunger, deep down, but if he eats any more Loki knows that he won't be able to stop it from coming back up -- and the thought of what would happen if the tainted magic he struggles to contain were unleashed upon this crowd of revelers is horrifying. Abruptly Loki can stand it no more, the loud noises and heavy smells and bright lights of the feasting hall, and pushes himself to his unsteady feet.   
  
By the time he leaves the hall, the poets have finished their composing and begun to retell the day's adventures in balladic form. Loki can't help but notice, even as he leaves the hall, that the focus is much shifted: according to the new version of the story, his own raid on the dark elf encampment ended in failure when he collapses halfway through, leaving Thor and his companions to finish the rescue themselves.  If Loki knows his countrymen, within a few days people will have forgotten he was even involved at all.  
  
Let them think what they want; they are silly, air-headed social butterflies, and Loki knows far too many of their secrets to have any false ideas about them. It's not their approval he seeks, he tells himself, because their opinions don't matter. The only one whose approval and praise he really seeks is his Odin's, because as both father and king Odin is everything to Loki.  
  
Except that Odin hadn't been proud of him, either. Not today.  
  
How is it, Loki wonders as he strides head-down towards his chambers, that things always fall out this way? How is it that Loki can end up with the blame for Thor's failures, and Thor with the credit for Loki's triumphs?  
  
It's all about the narrative, the ideas that they have fixed in their heads. Thor is the golden prince, the eldest, the successful one, the brave warrior. Loki is the spare, always second in everything, lesser, a failure. No matter what he does, no matter what the reality is, that will never change the picture they have in their minds.   
  
He seeks sanctuary in his rooms, the one place he can go where nowhere can bother him. He can find refuge amongst his books and familiar things, can find ease for the pain that claws at his gut -- and maybe, in sleep, ease from the other pain as well.  
  
The door bangs against the opposite wall, leaving a scuffmark in the stone as Loki staggers into his room. It is hard to even walk straight, hard to make his legs would through the sheets of agony that flare up through his stomach and chest. He clutches one hand against his chest and stumbles across the room, aiming for the sanctuary, the refuge of his hidden workshop.  
  
His breathing is fast and shallow in his chest as he manages to wrestle the concealed shelf down... and then bites back a sob as his eyes run over the rows of glass-and-metal flasks and he realizes there are no pain potions left. He used them all, used up all his reagents before this even began, before he went out on his ill-conceived venture to rescue Thor. And there will be no trips to Alfheim now.  
  
He crabwalks over to the bed and curls up on it, wrapping his arms around his torso and gritting his teeth as he rides the waves of pain. It'll pass off soon. It must. It always has before, right? If he holds very still... and doesn't move, doesn't breathe deep, doesn't do anything but wait for it to pass...  
  
A knock on his door startles him out of the semi-trance he'd fallen into, and Loki moans aloud. There's no mistaking that knock, that rapid pounding that seems fit to hammer down his door. "Not now," he moans, too soft to be heard from the outside. Bad enough handling Thor and his merciless teasing when Loki is feeling at his best; he cannot handle it _now,_   he just doesn't have the strength, doesn't have the endurance.  
  
"Brother!" Thor's voice reverberates down the stone hall. "I would have words with you!"  
  
"Go away," Loki calls weakly, and has to raise his head and muster his feeble strength to say it louder. "I said go away! I'm not in the mood."  
  
"It has been suggested to me that I have not done my proper duty in regards to our recent adventures," Thor booms through the doorway, and his brother just _can_ not _take a hint._  
  
"Thor, if you try to cross this threshhold I swear by the nine realms that I will   _end  you,"_  Loki snarls.  
  
"Come now, Loki, you are not still upset about the ballads over dinner, are you?" Thor calls out suspiciously. "They could have been better, perhaps, but that is of no matter. Enough of your sulking fits! Open the door, let us reconcile."  
  
The door rattles, and only belatedly does Loki realize that in his hurry to open his workbench earlier, he had completely forgotten to lock it. Not that an ordinary lock would stop Thor when he's in a mood -- or, indeed, an ordinary door, or an ordinary wall -- but Loki's magical locks should have. Instead, the door bursts wide and Thor stands in the doorway, looking golden and overweeningly full of himself, as always.  Loki freezes like a cornered deer, momentarily too overwhelmed to make good his earlier threat, and Thor strides forward and plants himself in the middle of Loki's private territory.    
  
"Sif reminded me that I have yet to thank --" Thor breaks off, his nose wrinkling as he takes in the wreckage of Loki's scattered apothecary. "What in the Nine Realms have you been up to, Brother? Thinking of taking over the post of palace chemist?"  
  
"None of your business!" Loki lurches to his feet, placing himself between Thor and his workbench with his arms spread as though to block Thor's view of the process. "And I would hardly expect a simpleton like you to understand what I'm trying to do," he says spitefully.   
  
Thor snorts. "Still upset over the ballads earlier, Loki?" he asks in a patronizing tone. _"_ It's not the poets' fault that your little tricks do not make very good epic verse."  
  
Loki grits his teeth. "A failure of their imaginations, not mine," he snaps.  
  
"Well, they're the ones that decide what goes into the odes," Thor says. "You have to admit that imitating voices like a storyteller to shout childish insults is not exactly _heroic."_  
  
"It was effective, though."  
  
"You do this to yourself, you know," Thor says, in that supercilious big-brother voice that Loki _loathes._  "You could be a strong warrior if only you applied yourself. Your fighting techniques are not half bad, you know. If you applied a little more effort to that, and didn't spend so much time locked away or skulking in corners like a mouse, people would take more notice of you."  
  
"In other words, if only I would be more like _you,"_  Loki sneers. "Is that it?"  
  
"Well, yes," Thor says, surprise evident in his voice that anyone could possibly not appreciate this fantastic suggestion for its merits.  
  
Loki rolls his eyes, and his breath huffs out in aggravation. "If that's all you barged into my rooms to say, then you're welcome to show yourself out," he says. "I'm not feeling well, and I would like to rest."  
  
Thor clucks his tongue, a disapproving look on his face. "Still playing that old game for sympathy, Brother?" he says severely. "You said yourself that you have no wound. You were well enough at dinner tonight. I am not to be fooled by your pretensions at weakness you do not truly feel!"  
  
Loki swallows hard against the acid-burn of pain in his throat. How like Thor it is, he thinks in disgust, to fall so easily for any deceit Loki chooses to feed him, only to obstinately refuse to see the truth when it's right in front of him. At the same time he's grateful for Thor's continued thickheadedness; with Loki falling to pieces before his eyes and his workbench of half-made medical potions wide open in front of him, he'd been terrified for a moment that his secret was out. Thank the Norns for Thor's disinterest in alchemy -- and indeed, disinterest in anything he couldn't fight, drink or fuck. The only risk Thor poses to Loki tonight is to his patience, already stretched thin by the events of the day.      
  
"Believe it or not, as you will," he says. "Either way, you can leave, because I'm going to _bed,_  Brother. In case you'd forgotten, I _quite_  wore myself out _saving you and your friends from captivity_  earlier today." He marches over to his door and holds it pointedly open, ready to slam and lock it behind Thor as soon as he leaves. "Out!"  
  
Thor continues to delay for a little longer out of sheer petulance -- and honestly, which of them was supposed to be the elder? Because Thor more often acts the part of the spoiled child than his so-called younger brother. At last, though, he condescends to leave Loki to his peace, with a cheery admonition to rest well in preparation for tomorrow. "For tomorrow, we redress the _dökkálfar_ for their slights upon us!" Thor's voice roars out through the empty hallway. Loki slams the door behind him.  
  
Left at last in peace, Loki sighs, as the utter exhaustion of the day redoubles upon him. As though the seething pain in his stomach and the painful rasp that accompanies each breath weren't bad enough -- now, thanks to Thor, he has a raging headache as well.  
  
He barely manages to shuffle far enough to reach his bed before he collapses into it, pulling one pillow over his head as though to block out the assorted miseries of the world. Thor was right about one thing -- he must recover his strength, because no doubt tomorrow Odin will lead the army in defense against the dark elf invaders; and he, as Odin's son, must be there.  
  
Despite his best efforts to sleep, though, the pain keeps him awake for most of the night.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Loki sleeps poorly, and arises in the grey of the dawn hours to prowl the familiar halls restlessly. The corridors echo with shouted commands and the clash of steel and stone. He is not unfamiliar with war -- no son of Odin's could be -- but this is the first time in his short life that war has come to the shores of Asgard, and even though he knows all preparations are being made to stop the invaders before they can do any great harm, it still leaves him with a feeling of deep unease. For years Loki has taken it on himself to safeguard his family, his country and people, and although he knows this tide is beyond the capability of any one man to stem, he still feels upset at the prospect of his failure.  
  
He is just about to go and seek out his brother's company -- Thor is likely still abed at this hour, but that only makes the prospect of disturbing him more appealing -- when he spies Odin walking with swift purpose through the hall ahead of him. The king is momentarily alone, although he carries the spear Gungnir with him. Curiosity combines with the anxious desire to speak with his father alone, and Loki cloaks himself in darkness out of automatic habit and falls in behind his father.   
  
Odin, with Loki trailing unseen at his heels, turns west towards the outer fortifications and mounts the broad stone stairs leading to the tower. They emerge atop the outmost wall of the keep, beyond which lie the broad meadows and woods that fall gradually away to the edge of the world. There are some Aesir who choose to live outside the walls, whether huntsmen or herdsmen or merely those who prefer the solitude over the splendor of Asgard; but all those were evacuated last night, and have been brought safely behind protection.   
  
Into that undefended gap poured the invading army. The sight that meets his eyes from that height does nothing to reassure him: the dark elf encampment has moved during the night, and now flows across the land like an encroaching ocean. There is still a gap of clear lawn between the edge of the army and the foot of the walls -- they are not yet so incautious as to place themselves within easy bow-shot -- but the sheer arrogance of their advance takes Loki's breath away.  
  
Odin stands tall on the battlements, disdain plain in his bearing as he calmly surveys the mess the invaders have made of his land. He is hardly defenseless -- he bears Gugnir, which can swat aside any attacking spell or flight of arrows as contemptuously as a swarm of flies -- but it still makes Loki anxious to see him so unattended, and he hurries along the walkway to join his father's side.  
  
By the time he gets there, a trio of dark figures have detached themselves from the main mass of the army and are drawing close to the shadow of the wall. Above them flutter and snap the white pennants used to indicate truce, surrender or parlay -- under the circumstances, Loki has trouble believing it could be either of the first two.   
  
The small party stops within earshot of the wall, and one man spurs his horse a bit further ahead of the rest; a tall man, in well-fitted armor with much elaborate gilding and decoration. The knots at his shoulder form the pattern of a stylized wolf in front of a mountain keep, in the colors of blue and black. Loki's interest sharpens on him as he calls up to the wall, in a jovial voice: "Ho, Odin-king! Well met on this fine hunting day."  
  
"And to you, Sarvi," Odin returns dryly. His voice is strong enough to cut through a hall of rowdy warriors, strong enough that the legends say he can knock over an enemy merely by roaring at him; he has no trouble making his voice heard across the distance. "Although you seem to be trespassing on land that does not belong to you."  
  
Sarvi laughs. "Consider it a prospective tour, as one would view a piece of property that one has recently purchased."  
  
Odin's smile is sour. "And are you prepared to purchase it with the heads of every soldier you dragged along with you on this misbegotten adventure?"  
  
"Certainly, if need be;" and the dark elf makes no secret of his indifference to the lives or deaths of all those under his command. His answering smile is wide and thoroughly unpleasant. "Along with the eyes and entrails of every man, woman and child who cowers behind those golden walls. But come now, Odin-king, let us put aside such unpleasant thoughts. I have come to offer you a bargain price, should you choose to take it."  
  
Odin folds his arms across the battlement and leans over them, a posture of studied nonchalance. "Say what you have come to say, then."  
  
Sarvi gestures to one of his escorts, who draws a rolled paper from his satchel and opens it. His voice rolls out in an accomplished parade-ground bellow: "These are the terms of your surrender, Odin son of Bor, false king of Asgard..."  
  
It goes on from there. It's mostly pretty standard, from what Loki can tell, and all very tiresome: demands to yield golden Asgard to the joint alliance of Sarvi and Bladtheri, tribute payment of all the riches and legendary weapons the Aesir possess; surrender of their women, etc etc. Only one item towards the end catches him by surprise, and also by alarm: "...and also that you will turn over the criminal you call your son, that he may face justice for his crimes."  
  
This seems to get Odin's attention, drawing him out of the stiff wooden expression he'd adopted while listening to the terms. "My son? What, Thor? What crimes has he committed against you? Specifically," he thinks to add. Thor has gotten into trouble enough in Svartalfheim in the past, but never with these princes particularly -- at least not that Odin knows of.  
  
"Not your eldest," Sarvi scoffs. "The other one, the gutless wonder; Loki of Asgard. He was positively identified by several witnesses as skulking through our borders yesterday evening, and is believed to be responsible for the murder of one of our finest officers, as well as for destruction of property and contamination of our rations."  
  
Oh, so they'd found that out, had they? Loki had been hoping the effects of the poison he'd left behind would be able to spread a little further before being noticed, but he supposes it was too much to hope for that they wouldn't tender a close examination once their men started falling sick. He never did get a chance to talk to Odin last night, however, to inform him of that particular development; he watches his father now, heart in his mouth, to see how he'll react.  
  
Odin seems unimpressed. "I fail to see how this is any concern of mine," he says. "The land on which you so rudely set your tents is still within the borders of Asgard, last I checked. A Prince of Asgard may certainly go wherever he wishes within those borders, and not be answerable to any miserable _dökkálf_ cur who crosses his path."  
  
Sarvi shakes his head as if Odin is a particularly disappointing student. "You only do yourself injury, Allfather, by choosing to harbor such a snake in your bed," he says disapprovingly. "Such underhanded, craven tactics should not be tolerated or condoned by any king who makes a pretense at honor, and I would only be doing you a favor by making an example of him. If you will not accede to any other of our reasonable demands, hand over the boy, and we will spare your lives for another day."  
  
"Come, good baron, would you trouble me to spit upon you?" Odin says conversationally. "You have given me your terms. I now give you mine. Take your armies and your filthy encampments and depart Asgard within the day, and I will not be put to the trouble of slaughtering you where you stand like cows in a field. Reparations for the damages you have caused and the outrage of your trespass may be discussed later, when you are once again holed in your miserable dens under Svartalfheim."  
  
The threat is delivered in an amiable tone, but there is nothing friendly about the cold expression on his face as he stares down upon the dark elves, nor funny in the way his hand grips Gungnir. The power of the staff is such that it could incinerate all three of them from this distance, flag or no flag, and they surely must know it.   
  
But Sarvi only laughs again, a sound full of unpleasant secrets.  "I marvel that you feel confident enough to dictate terms in such arrogance," he says. "Tell me, Odin Wanderer, how is your lady wife?"  
  
This leads to a distinct pause in the almost ritualized exchange of insults, and Loki can see Odin's expression flicker as he tries to follow the sudden change of topic. "She is well," he said, and only someone as familiar with Odin as Loki is could discern the uncertainty in his tone. "She shall be better, no doubt, when the ruffians are removed from our territory."  
  
"No doubt she shall," Sarvi says, his tone and expression openly amused. "Well, give her my regards -- and those of my advisors, as well. We shall be seeing one another again soon enough."  
  
With that, he pulls his horse around and rides back towards his encampment, his two assistants falling in beside him.  
  
Odin stands on the top of the wall, still as a statue; once the dark elves are out of easy sight, Loki slips up beside him and drops the illusion of shadows. "Father?" he asks uncertainly. Odin starts slightly, blinking as though coming out of a trance, and turns towards him with a thoughtful frown.  
  
"Loki," he greets his son absently. "I didn't see you there, boy. Were you listening?"  
  
Loki nods, then hesitates. A week ago, he would not have hesitated; he'd have assumed that he knew what the Allfather intended, knew his role in things. But Odin's words yesterday shattered that assumption, changed _everything,_  and now Loki is reluctant to take action without explicit confirmation first.   
  
The problem is that he isn't sure _how_   to ask. Isn't sure how to broach the subject, to break the ice. "I heard... that is, I heard the baron requesting that I should be turned over to him," he begins.  
  
"You heard that?" Odin grimaces. "Don't worry about it, my son. The exchange of such demands is merely a formality, a ritual exchange of words before the blows begin. Neither of us were seriously considering the other's terms, not for an instant."  
  
"Right, of course," Loki agrees. He understands that -- Odin cannot give in to the enemy's demands openly, or lose face in front of his warriors and generals. Not openly, but covertly... "I wondered -- that is, I was wondering if you thought I should... go to them. Give myself up to them."  
  
Odin stops short and wheels to stare at him, a dumbfounded expression on his face. "Hel's teeth, boy! Of course not! Why would I ever agree to such a ridiculous thing?"  
  
"So that I could..." Loki trails off, his determination wilting in the face of Odin's evident wrath. "So that you would have an ally inside the camp, for when the attack comes. I could do things, inside the camp -- I could strike where they least expect it, disorganize their attacks..."   
  
He'd already made plans for it. He could, if the winds are in his favor, decapitate their officer corps -- some of them literally -- and leave the army in chaos, complete the destruction of the provisions that he'd barely had a chance to start the day before. He could infiltrate their leadership and ferret out the location of their sorcerers, discern the secret methods by which they had transported themselves to Asgard so as to head off any future invasions before they begin. It won't be easy, and it's unlikely that he will escape unscathed, but he can _do_  these things. It is what Odin trained him to do.  
  
"No," Odin says, and his voice is iron certainty. "Absolutely not, Loki. I have no intention of letting them get their hands on you, so put these foolish thoughts out of your head."  
  
And Loki is left speechless.  
  
Because if that's not what Odin wants from him, then what _does_  he want?  
  
Odin grimaces, raising one hand to rub his brow and temple by the ruined eye; it is a habit he reserves for when he is particularly troubled by things. "This whole excursion of theirs is a fool's errand," he grouses. "They should have attacked us last night, or yesterday, if they were to have any hope at all of taking us by surprise. Letting us gather our strength like this, and choose our own hour of attack -- folly. Bladtheri is as stupid as the day is long, but I would expect better from Sarvi. He may be a hypocrite and a liar, but no one ever claimed he wasn't clever, so what in all the realms is he _planning?"_  
  
Loki blinks. "You don't know?" he asks.  
  
To him, the answer is obvious. Sarvi's parting shot about Frigga would have clued him in, if he hadn't been able to reason the answer out logically. Sarvi (for it could have been no one else) sent the curse into Asgard weeks ago. As far as Sarvi or any of his sorcerers knows, the spell is still intact, which means it couldn't have been discovered. With Frigga ensorcelled, struck ill and driven into madness, half the heart of Asgard would have been torn out already. With two weeks in which to work, the subtle spread of corrosion and insanity would have crept throughout Asgard unchecked.  
  
The dark elves rode up to the golden gates fully expecting to find the kingdom behind them in a state of chaos and disarray, halfway to collapse. That Odin would appear before them alone, and listen to their terms, would only confirm them in that idea. They are content to sit outside and wait because they believe time to be on their side, that every minute only brings them closer to victory as it brings Asgard closer to ruin.   
  
He's wrong, of course; his little magical homunculus was caught and contained before it ever reached its target. Sarvi came expecting to find a kingdom on the brink of collapse and instead found Asgard at the peak of its strength, surprised and immensely irritated at his presumption and folly. Odin's armies would wipe his expedition off the face of the map tomorrow, unless Sarvi has more surprises up his sleeve. Loki would know more if his father had allowed him to go back to the camp to scout, but --  
  
Loki knows all these things, because he knew about the dark elves' curse.  
  
And Odin doesn't.  
  
"No, I don't know," Odin sighs, oblivious to the effect those words have on his son. He tips his head back, staring wearily into the immensity of Asgard's sky. "I am old, my son, and in my years I have seen and learned many things, and paid many prices, and for it, I am called wise. But wise isn't the same as all-knowing, and when it comes to the plots and follies of little men, there are many things I do not know."  
  
"But," Loki stammers, distressed beyond the telling of it. "But, you have the ravens -- and Heimdall -- they can see anything in the nine realms? How can you _not know_?"  
  
He feels like he's dangling over a vast gulf, and he _knows_  he's grasping at straws but those are all that are left to keep him from falling.   Odin knows -- Odin _must_  know -- even if he didn't specifically order Loki to do all the things that he did, surely he must _know_  what Loki has been doing. What Loki has done, for him, for Frigga, for the kingdom. Surely he must know all that Loki has done and borne and sacrificed, all for hope of gaining his favor. He must know.   
  
But Odin only shakes his head. "They are powerful tools, it is true," he agrees, "but being able to see _anything_  is not the same as being able to see _everything,_  all at once. The Realms are vast, and even with the assistance of the Gatewatcher there is much that goes on that is missed simply because our gaze happened to be elsewhere at the time. Where to look, and when, are the calls of judgment that we must make every day. And sometimes, those judgments are wrong.  
  
"I am flattered by your confidence in my omniscience, Loki," Odin says, turning to Loki with a wry smile. "But that is only the faith of a small child who still believes that his parents are perfect. I am not."  
  
The silence hangs between them for an endless moment, Loki frozen, Odin pensive. At last the Allfather stirs himself, and claps Loki on the shoulder. "And now we must deal with the results of what I did not see coming," he says. "Do not worry so much, my son. It is no intention of mine that Sarvi and his blood-drinkers will have their way."  
  
He turns and walks away, and behind him Loki is falling, falling.  



	4. Chapter 4

  
  
Loki spends the morning in his chambers, alternating between pacing and sitting doubled over in his chair, panting against the mounting pain. The malicious knot of magic in his abdomen has spread again, sending out spikes that seem to pierce him like hooks from the inside, and every jolting step sends a lance of fire up through his sides. But at the same time his thoughts are raging inside his head, threatening to boil and overflow if he sits quietly for too long; and so he is driven to rise again and limp again in circles, seeking respite in something as simple as sheer bloodied exhaustion.  
  
Odin doesn't know all that has been going on in Asgard. Loki accepts that now, has no choice but to do so when the truth of the matter is rubbed in his face. As hard as it is to believe, he must face the fact that the games he has been playing with the dark elves over the past few months are unknown to Odin. That means there is information, possibly vital, that Odin lacks; Loki knows that he ought to go to Odin now and tell him everything.  
  
The problem is, he doesn't know where to   _start._   In all the years of Loki's secret dealings it never occurred to him to make open, straightforward reports to his king-and-father. How far back will Loki have to go, to explain how he knows what he knows and convince Odin of the truth of his words? If Loki has been fooling himself all this time with Odin's pretend acceptance and false endorsements, then what will Odin do when truly faced for the first time with Loki's long record of machinations?  
  
What will Odin do, what will he say, when he learns that the dark elves have been sending poison and traps into the court for months and Loki has quietly intercepted them and said nothing to anyone? Will he be proud of Loki for his cunning and bravery, or -- as he did yesterday -- will he berate Loki for his recklessness and lack of forethought? Will he be grateful for Loki for all he has done for Asgard, or will he be... ashamed... when he learns that his son submitted to the depraved advances of the Vanir ambassador in exchange for a temporary peace?  
  
Loki hopes that he knows his father well enough that he _would_  be proud, that he would not be angry or disappointed or disgusted by Loki's actions. Odin is wise and experienced, politically astute, and he has been capable of such deviousness in the past that Loki always knew from which of his parents he inherited his mien. But all that Loki hopes comes in second to what Loki fears, and it is that fear that keeps him confined to his chambers as the morning fades into noon and then afternoon.  
  
The sound of the horn drifting up from the courtyard alerts him, sends a bolt of dismay clear through his chest. He knows all of Odin's battle-horns, and this one is the signal for the golden gates to open, for the troops assembled to move out. He sends one horrified glance out his windows to the courtyard, but that only tells him what he already knew: he can see the shining ranks assembled, Asgard's finest warriors poised. Asgard rides to war and he, Loki, is not ready.  
  
This should not have happened. A servant should have come to him hours hence, not only to inform him of the coming battle but also to help him don his armor. He does it himself, now, hurried and awkward with his arms wrenched behind his back in the mirror as he tries to do up the stays. He rushes through the preparations as fast as he physically can, his normally deft hands made clumsy by panic. He trips out his bedroom door and nearly falls down the flights of stairs in his haste, but none of that is going to change the fact that he is horribly, inexcusably   _late._  
  
Odin is already mounted on Sleipnir by the time Loki gets there, Gugnir in hand, prepared to ride out and deal death like a thunderbolt on their enemies. Thor is right behind him at Odin's right shoulder, on his own roan warhorse with Mjolnir at the ready -- but there is no corresponding gap for Loki on his left hand. All heads turn towards him as he limps quickly across the courtyard, and he takes a deep breath as he drops to one knee in apology for his abrupt arrival.  
  
"Forgive me for my tardiness, Allfather," Loki says, heart beating in his mouth. Everyone is _staring_  at him, armor askew and out of breath even from such a short sprint from his rooms to here. Maybe it is his own fault for being so late and ill-prepared, but -- "I did not receive your summons -- I did not realize until it was almost too late," he feels compelled to add in defense of his shortcomings.  
  
Odin turns to look at him, and his lips compress with exasperation. "That would be because, Loki, no summons was sent."  
  
Loki's head jerks up to stare at Odin, his eyes wide. "Wh-what?" he stammers, unable to believe the evidence of his own ears.  
  
"I did not feel it was necessary to drag you along on this ugly business," Odin explains. "You have already played your part in this campaign, you need do no more. Especially not when you are so clearly unwell. Go lie down, boy, and be sure to be seen by Eir when we return. "  
  
Loki feels his face drain cold, then blushes scarlet with painfully hot humiliation. Odin is absolutely right and Loki knows it; he can barely stand up straight, swaying very slightly on his feet even in the calmest of circumstances. It would be folly to ride into battle in his condition, and a part of Loki is secretly grateful for the reprieve that Odin offers him. He's proved his willingness to fight along with the rest of them, is that enough?  
  
He might even have been content to leave it at that had he not seen Thor, behind Odin's shoulder, roll his eyes and shake his head, and it could not be more obvious than if he'd shouted it from the rooftops that he thinks Loki is malingering again. Bad enough coming from Thor, but he wonders how many of the watching soldiers share in his brother's opinion. Asgard is a warrior society; its people are not and never have been forgiving of physical frailty. Loki knows that better than most, and that is what drives him to blurt out: "I am perfectly hale, Father. I can still stand, and I can still fight!"  
  
Odin snorts. "Your valiant efforts are appreciated, Loki, but they are not necessary. This is no grim battle that requires the aid of every hand in Asgard that can still hold a weapon. The force assembled here -- the warriors   _I_   selected -- will be more than enough to win the field. We will not suffer for the lack of one more."  
  
"Especially not when you don't even have a _weapon,"_  Thor mutters, and maybe he thinks he's being quiet but there's not a word that comes out of that huge chest that Loki's sharp ears couldn't catch. For a moment he wants to scream at Thor, scream at Odin even: _that's because you never_ gave _me one! Why did you give Mjolnir to Thor and not to me? Why, why do you set Thor at your right hand and never ME?_  
  
It is a perfect conundrum Loki has come up against many times: how can one demonstrate sufficient prowess in battle to win the right to wield a great weapon, if one lacks a weapon to enter the battle in the first place? Loki's answer was always to try to substitute cunning for what strength of arms could not do alone; but that has never been enough, it seems, for his father to recognize his efforts. Not ever, and not now.  
  
"I can still be useful," he persists, and this is a bad idea and he knows it. He has an audience, he is humiliating himself in front of half his father's army, but he can't just let this go, he can't, he can't. "Father, please! Even if I can't fight, I can still do other things -- I can scry the enemy's battle formations, I can --"  
  
" _No_ , Loki," Odin interrupts him, his voice firm and unyielding; Loki stutters into silence. "Sarvi's men are aiming for   _you_   in particular; whatever the reason for his grudge, I have absolutely no intention of putting you where he can reach you. You will remain here, guarding the keep against any last-minute sojourn by our enemies."  
  
Loki's jaw drops, and he stares at his father in utter disbelief. The post of guarding hearth and home -- the last-ditch defenses against enemies who have breached so far as to threaten the very heart of the realm -- that is the _women's_  role, and every soldier present here knows it. Every _ásynja_ capable of lifting spear or sword is taught from a very young age how to take up arms in an hour of dire need -- it is only a rare woman indeed, like Sif Lieffsdaughter, who goes so far as to seek out war before it comes to her. Assigning a man to that role, even one whose masculinity is so in doubt as Loki's, is a dire insult -- one Odin doesn't even seem to realize.  
  
Or is it that Odin doesn't _care?_  
  
"Allfather -- my king, I beg of you -- " he stammers, and every word he says is only digging himself into a deeper pit, but he can't seem to make himself stop. He just needs to find the right argument, the right words to turn things around and turn Odin to his point of view; to make his father stop and turn and look at him, acknowledge him, _see him..._    
  
Odin cuts him off with an irritated snarl, and the sound stops Loki's voice midword. "This is not a matter that is open for discussion," he says in a voice like steel. "You are staying here, Loki, and that is final. If you like, you may consider it your punishment for your recklessness yesterday."  
  
With that he signals Sleipnir forward, while Loki is still sputtering in disbelief over the utter _injustice_   of Odin's proclamation. How, how in the nine realms can Loki be punished for saving Thor for his folly while Thor gets off scot-free, sharing in the very reward that Loki is being denied?    
  
The great eight-legged steed snorts restlessly and starts off with a high step. The rest of Odin's honor guard falls in behind him, and Thor shoots Loki a wide, maliciously triumphant smile as he rides past. The assembled warhorses fill the courtyard with a thunderstorm of clattering hoofbeats; they part around Loki and pass him by, and in the end Loki is left standing in the courtyard alone and utterly alone.  
  


* * *

  
  
The battle against the dark elf army -- more of a rout, really, from a tactical standpoint -- lasts for two days. It is the longest two days of Loki's life.  
  
To be left behind in the castle with little to occupy him but his thoughts would be painful enough; all of Loki's friends, such as they are, rode off with Odin. Those who remain in the golden keep's empty halls are mostly the servants and women, and Loki has few acquaintances among either group. The only person who would welcome his presence at a time like this is Frigga, and there are any number of reasons why Loki wishes to avoid his mother's attention at this time.  
  
But that is the least of Loki's concerns right now. The spell which Loki had swallowed grows within him apace, and with it the strength and willpower needed to keep it contained. When he had first taken the spell into himself he was able to subdue its harmful effects and still use his magic more or less normally; by the time of Thor's rescue he found himself limited to casting only one spell at a time, and only minor spells that do not demand much energy.  
  
Now, however, even the smallest cantrip is out of the question. He needs every ounce of his magic to fight against the cancerous, malicious growth of the spell inside his chest, and he is faced with the certainty that soon, very soon, even that will not be enough. It is growing still, it is pushing out cruel barbed hooks and long winding tendrils throughout his stomach and guts and heart and _he cannot stop it._    
  
Every breath he takes now is like a file drawn through his lungs, and he can taste a fine mist of blood on the back of his throat. Loki knows perfectly well that this has gone beyond his ability to control it or contain it, that things are really, truly wrong inside him, and were this sickness of any other cause Loki would have long ago swallowed his pride and gone to seek help.  
  
The healer Eir and most of her apprentices went with the army, of course; there is little benefit to counting the most accomplished healer in the Nine Realms among your retinue if she cannot be on hand to treat the wounds of battle before the warriors are overcome by then. But even if Eir were here Loki still would not dare to go to her; the malady that afflicts him is uncanny, not natural, and for all her great powers Eir has no command over the malicious magics of others. She would not be able to help him, and if she tried she would only burst the tentative balloon of his self-control and manifest the curse on Asgard despite all his efforts to stop it.  
  
And so there is little left for him to do but to flee to his accustomed dark  corners, wrap himself into a huddle with his arms hugging his knees as though he can contain the curse just by physically holding on to it, and to contemplate all of the ways that his good intentions went terribly astray.  
  
Loki has made a mistake.  
  
A vile, monumental mistake, founded in his own hubris. He had played,   _played_   at games of cloak and dagger, played with charms and cantrips and thought himself a real   _sorcerer_  because he was marginally better at it than the magicless oafs who surrounded him. He'd thought himself so noble, so clever, so brave, to take the danger onto himself. To take the magic into himself.  
  
He'd thought he could contain this curse. He'd been wrong; maybe no one could contain this curse, but certainly not Loki.  
  
The dark elven sorcerer who crafted this spell -- or sorcerers, however many they may have been -- are clearly not amateurs like him. No wonder they sent their armies so confidently to Asgard's shores; they surely must know that their magic still simmers and sucks in nourishment and grows under the very heart of Odin's throne. They sit outside the golden gates waiting for the Aesir army to fall apart before them, for their enemy's fortifications to  crumble from within. Waiting for the spell to do its work.  
  
He understands now that it was not just a curse meant to attack one person, be that person the Queen of Asgard or anyone else. The dark elves had meant to plant it on Frigga precisely   _because_  she was the one person in Asgard whom Odin would never slay, not even if letting her live -- letting the curse continue its work -- would mean the end of all his empire. This was a curse meant to tear down a fortress; it was made to demolish a city from within. Certainly it would bring the madness and corruption he'd first sensed from it, but he saw now that was only a side effect on the road to its true intentions. It was a seed meant to root itself in someone's spirit and spread outwards, send tendrils out through the hallways and pipes and tunnels of all Asgard. Rust the gates, crumble the walls, rot the bodies, tear it all down.  
  
And Loki swallowed it. If he had not, the dark elf army would not be camped outside their gates today. No doubt Odin's advisors, if they knew, would say that this entire war is _all his fault._  
  
It's inside him now, and he can feel and almost hear the susurrations of its destructive malice running through his bloodstream. Furious howling, seductive song, a rampaging cacophony of chaos all clamoring inside of his ears to be let free. He's terrified of the thought that it might bleed into him, all that cruelty and chaos and drive him   _mad,_   terrified that it might take away his mind. Because great warriors can survive losing their minds -- live on as berserkers and still have a place in Asgard's golden halls -- but where would Loki Silvertongue be without his wits, without his clever words, without his tricks and traps and magic? He would be nothing, he would have nothing left, no strength and no courage and _no mind_  left.  
  
It takes everything he has to crush it, squeeze it down, wrap it tight and keep it inside him. It's like trying to hold an ocean in a drinking horn, trying to hold shut a flimsy door with a herd of rampaging bilgeshnips on the other side. Like trying to outrace fire.  
  
It is taking every drop of strength and tenacity that he has to keep a lid on it and that won't be   _enough_.   It is going to break free, it is going to rupture and rampage through his home and destroy   _everything_   that he loves, and the only question is whether it will kill him before or after it escapes.  
  
His only recourse now is to wait for the return of Odin and his army; he clings to the hope that his father is wise in many things, even matters of magic that are not considered proper for a man of Asgard. Maybe Odin will know what to do. It is all that Loki has left to hope for.  
  
And so Loki huddles in his dark corner, and takes breath after breath that feel like fire and taste like blood, and counts down the hours until Odin's return.  


* * *

  
  
  
By the time the first strains of wildly blowing trumpets reach Asgard to announce the kingdom's victory over its enemies, the sun is rising on the second day. The golden gates open once more and the host rides back, triumphant and exultant.  
  
Loki, by this time, feels almost numb. The pain has lessened, or at least his capacity for feeling it; the worst of it is for some reason flares of pain in his arms and legs as he peels himself out of his hiding place and stands up. He walks very carefully, gingerly, like a man holding an over-full cup for fear of spilling a single drop.  
  
Daylight is rising over the land, reflected from a hundred gleaming weapons and shields and points of armor; there are one or two empty saddles amongst the host, and the remainder are darkened slightly with dirt and blood, but it all blurs together in Loki's eyes. He walks out into the courtyard and stops, swaying very slightly on the marble paving stones as he searches for his father and brother among the throng.  
  
Thor spots him first, and nudges his warhorse over in Loki's direction with a hand raised in salute and a glad cry on his lips. "Ho, Brother! Have you come out to greet us?" he calls cheerfully. "It was a glorious battle! You should have seen it. I myself have slain --"  
  
He rattles on but Loki isn't listening, the sound in his ears seeming to blur all together as he raises his gaze to meet Odin's. His father looks tired from the battle, but proud and stern, dangerous in a way that Thor for all his fearsome temper can never approach. A part of Loki is still afraid of what is about to happen, but he has reached the point where there really is no other choice.  
  
In the dark hours he had wondered if he must convince Odin to kill him for the good of the realm, and just how difficult it would or wouldn't prove. But now, he thinks that won't even be necessary.  
  
"Father," he says, and he puts all of his iron self-control into making sure that the words do not stutter and slur. He holds himself very, very still, as though his skin is a thin shell too likely to break if jostled.  "I... I believe I may have erred."  
  
Odin reins up before him, a soothing hand against Sleipnir's neck. The horse that Loki hand-raised from infancy, whom the Allfather rides into battle and chaos without a hint of fear, now snorts and shies uneasily away from his adoptive mother, and requires Odin's firm hand to settle. The Allfather looks down on his son with a stern frown.  "What is it, Loki?" he says.  
  
And Loki opens his mouth and cannot say a word. There's a rush of heat and bitter bile and thick terror up his throat and he _can not say  anything._   Cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, trickles down his back and his arms.  
  
Odin looks closer, frowning at him. "Son, are you all right?" he says in a gentler tone. "You look terrible. Have you still not been to the healers?"  
  
Beside him, Thor rolls his eyes and huffs. "Father, he is just fine," he complains. "I told you before, he has no wound. He is merely   _faking_ for attention. He sees our return from battle all covered in glory, and he seeks to --"  
  
Loki doesn't mean to laugh, he really doesn't. A laugh is too similar to a cough, and a cough would break him open like rotten fruit. But he can't help it, the bitter spasm that wells up in him in response to Thor's words that turns to a wet choking noise in his mouth. His vision swims, and he has to lean precariously forward to spit a dark red smear of blood onto the ground.  
  
With an exclamation his father is off his horse in a moment and close to him, gripping him hard by the shoulder. Thor, Loki is spitefully pleased to see, has gone as white as though the blood in Loki's mouth were all his. "Tell me what has befallen you," Odin says, his voice urgent. "The truth, Loki."  
  
Loki swallows, and swallows again, and feels once more the agitated churn of the curse within his chest. He has not much time. "The... the day the delegation from Svartalfheim arrived," he says in a voice not much more than a whisper. "Among the gifts. There was a curse, an evil spell. I believe it was meant for m-mother."  
  
As humiliating as it is he can't stop the stammer, can't stop his lips and jaw from chattering as though he were cold. He's not cold; he's burning up. He forces more words to his lips. "I -- I did not want to alert the spellcaster by destroying the spell. I thought I c-could contain it and keep it safe. So I... swallowed it."  
  
Odin gives a startled oath, and Thor looks no less shocked by this revelation. "You   _swallowed  it?"_ Thor says, sounding as appalled as he had when they were young and would take turns swallowing rocks or bugs for each other's amusement. If only this had been something so harmless.  
  
"You are poisoned, then?" Odin demands, his hands tightening on Loki's shoulder; Loki shakes his head, and almost gives another startled, involuntary laugh. That would hurt. More.  
  
"I thought I could contain it," he repeats, his voice wavering until it nearly breaks. "But I c-cannot. It has become stronger, much stronger. I cannot hold it... any longer... and I fear, if it is set f-free, it will try to destroy everyone here."  
  
His father's face is a storm, cold and dark and lit only by the deadly glints of anger in his one remaining eye. "This has been going on for a fortnight?" he says, measuring the time between the dark elves' arrival in Asgard and today. "Why did you not   _tell me?"_  
  
Loki shuts his eyes and swallows hard, turning his head to the side as though he could avoid the blazing fury of Odin's gaze. "I thought you knew," he whispers brokenly. "I thought you knew."  
  
"Loki," Odin says sternly. His anger has been leashed -- for now, at any rate, Loki has no doubt he will be hearing it later, if he survives that long. "Enough of this. Whatever your intentions, they do not matter right now. Release this demon that you have contained, and we will dispose of it."  
  
He wants to. Desperately. He knows that if he doesn't, it will kill him in very short order and then Odin will be dealing with it anyway. But he can't help but plead one more time: "Father -- I am sorry. I never m-meant to --"  
  
His words stop; the muscles of his throat and stomach and chest seize and spasm. His legs give out and he falls to his knees, and the only thing that stops him from pitching onto his face is Odin's hand on his shoulder. In desperation he swings his arm and knocks Odin's hand away, forcing his father a few paces back; not far enough to be safe, Loki knows, but what is safe any more...  
  
He coughs once, and dark blood splatters the marble paving stones once again. And then he vomits uncontrollably, and the bitter rush of foul magic comes pouring up his throat and out of his mouth with a triumphant scream.  
  
Magic, as Loki has better reason than most to know, is more than a little bit alive;  one can summon it, command it, coax it into the desired patterns and forms, but never truly control it. This magic has been alive and growing, packed into a space the size of a man's fist and never permitted the freedom to take on its destined shape, for two weeks. Whatever its creators had intended its shape to be, by the time it leaves Loki's body it has formed a monster, huge and bloodied and vicious with hatred and spite.  
  
Loki can hear the creature's deafening roar, can hear the voices of his brother and his father's men as they react in shock and alarm. He blinks watering eyes but can't see more than a blur; he gets a glimpse of wet fangs and long spindly claws and writhing tentacles, but can't focus on the whole of the thing. A thunderous impact shakes the courtyard, and Loki hears the crack of marble and the ringing sound of steel, hears the thuds and cries and oaths of his countrymen locked in battle.  
  
He tries to draw breath and his stomach heaves again, and Loki is lost to helpless retching as   _another_   accursed creature claws its way up his throat and pours out into the courtyard. It is half-manifested before it even clears his lips, and Loki gags at the feel of the long scaly tail dragging out of his throat and over his tongue.  
  
The curse is still there in his chest, seething and boiling with impatient fury, shoving and clawing its way to be the next to push past the confines of his skin and manifest in the real world. Loki gets half a breath before it starts again, his body turning itself inside out in an effort to rid itself of the unclean magic. Another clot of magic claws its way out of his mouth, transforming into an abomination of flesh. And then another. He barely even registers it when the sky cracks open overhead, a streak of lightning licking down from the heavens to strike the shattered stones.  
  
Loki is not even conscious of the battle going on around him, isn't aware of anything but the universe of burning pain. He's on his hands and elbows now, face inches from the marble paving stones. At last comes a break in the convulsions; at last he's able to gasp in a breath of clean air. The darkness recedes from his vision a bit and he's able to steady himself, to collect his wits. There is still a great hubbub of shouting around him, calling voices and stamping boots, but he doesn't hear the furor of battle any more and he hopes fervently that the monsters summoned by the dark elves' magic have been vanquished.  
  
The foul magic in his chest is gone. He can no longer feel its lingering malice, the burning heat and twisting tendrils. It is gone and he is free, clean, and alone in his skin for the first time in almost three weeks.  
  
The pain, however, remains. Agony lances through his chest with every half-crippled breath, his abdomen flinching with every tiny shift. Loki swallows, then gags and coughs again when hot liquid hits the back of his throat. Once again the spasm grips him and he vomits, but at least now what comes up his throat and onto the flagstones is only bitter liquid, nothing murderously uncanny. It's almost a relief to be throwing up normally again. He spits to clear his mouth, then gags and has to spit again, letting it pour out of his mouth like water from a spout.  
  
Only where is it all coming from? It's been weeks since he was able to stomach more than a bite of food, days since he's been able to force water past the ligature his throat. What is left in his stomach to come up?  
  
Loki lifts his darkening eyes, and the paving stones are awash in a field of shimmering crimson. From his vantage point it seems as bottomless and endless as an ocean, ripples spreading out beyond the hazy limits of his vision. He wonders if he has, somehow, come upon one of his brother's battlefields, because where else could all this blood have come from?  
  
Oh.  
  
The last remaining strength in his limbs gives out; he lays down on the cool marble stones in a spreading pool of his own blood, and closes his eyes.  


* * *

  
  
  
Loki wakes to a scene that is familiar and strange at once. Familiar because he'd woken more times than he could count to this same ceiling, the shape of the light through the archways, the faint whisper of the blowing curtains. Strange, because for years past counting he'd taken great pains to ensure that he was never forced to wake here again.  
  
Eir's healing chambers, Asgard's infirmary. It's been years since Loki set foot in here, since he learned to heal himself well enough not to require her services any longer. He'd even avoided visiting Thor or any of his friends when their antics landed them here, ever wary of the healer's cool and discerning gaze upon him. He didn't know how much she could tell from just a glance, but he'd done his best to avoid the risk entirely.  
  
For the moment, however, he is too relieved by this waking to worry overmuch about Eir. He feels good; better than he had expected, better than he's felt in a month. Longer. His body does not pain him, and his lungs and chest and stomach feel empty and _clean._ His blood is free of the cacophony of madness that had steadily increased over the past few days, and he feels something that might be the beginnings of hunger for the first time in weeks.  
  
The price of healing, as Loki well knows, is weakness; when he tries to shift his newly-mended muscles and tissue twinge in warning, so he gives up the effort and lies still again. He reaches for his magic and is overjoyed to feel it stir in response, to be able to draw on it again with no warning roar or acid burn when he overreaches his powers.  
  
He's just beginning to turn his attention to the world outside him when he hears an echoing knock. He shuts his eyes hastily, old habits making him feign sleep when others may be around to see it.  
  
Through slitted eyelids he sees Eir rise from her seat and cross the room towards the door. She shoots him a cool glance that warns him that the old healer may not be fooled by his dissimulation; she knew him well as a child, after all, better than any others save his mother and father. Perhaps better than they.  
  
The door opens, and Loki freezes as he catches glimpses of the figure standing behind it; Odin's too-familiar gruff voice echoes in the chamber. Eir replies in a soft murmur, and then the two of them step outside the healing chambers entirely and pull the door closed behind them.  
  
Loki can't suppress a small, quiet snort even as he's left alone in the peaceful room. Perhaps Eir does not know all he's capable of, but Odin at least should know better than to think something as simple as a closed door and a few dozen feet of space will keep Loki from hearing a conversation he wishes to overhear. Now that his magic is back at full strength it is the work of a moment to weave the charm.  
  
He breathes into his hand and a green glow hovers for a moment, then coalesces into a small spark. It is no larger than a beetle, glowing like a firefly, and it skitters across the room and burrows under the door. Loki lies back and shuts his eyes as his little spy orients itself, and then he can see and hear -- albeit a little bit blurry -- what is going on in the corridor beyond.  
  
"He is out of danger, then?" Odin is saying.  
  
"Without question," Eir replies. "There was a great deal of damage when you brought him to me -- strange to find such a disarray with no external mark or wound. The lining of his stomach was in shreds, but I have pieced it back together and mended it. There were also deep wounds to his lungs, extensive damage to his liver, and somewhat less so to his other organs, but that has been mended. Thankfully, whatever force wreaked havoc inside him did not penetrate his heart.    
  
"I have cleaned his lungs of fluid and his blood of infections, and induced him to sleep quietly until the last vestiges of shock wear off. As I have told you many times before, Allfather, he is hardier than you think; he will recover fully."  
  
"That is good to hear," Odin says quietly. He sounds oddly subdued, and it discomforts Loki to hear such a tone in his father's voice. For all the long time Loki had spent under the false assumption that Odin knew all of his dealings, it had never occurred to him that the injuries he might bear in pursuit of his duties would distress his father.  
  
But Eir is still talking. "It was not his current condition that I wished to speak with you about, however. I would be remiss if I did not ask you, Allfather, about his other wounds."  
  
There's a pause. Then, "Other wounds?" Odin asks.  
  
Loki cringes hard even from the other room, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth twisting in a silent scream of denial. This was why, this was   _exactly_   why he'd avoided Eir and her soothing chambers, her healing hands, her too-piercing gray eyes for so long. He'd known -- he'd   _known_   that once he was under her eye, there would be no way for him to hide.  
  
Many _ásynja_ are known to have sight beyond that of ordinary men; indeed, males like Odin or Loki who dabble in the occult are considered rather strange. Frigga herself is said to have sight that can discern the fates of men, although she tends to be rather close-mouthed about the things she sees. But for Eir, the focus of her gift is somewhat different.  
  
Every healer must have a keen eye and a deductive mind, in order to gather symptoms and perceive the course of an illness and the effect of the treatment. But in Eir's case it goes further; whether it is magic or just the millennia of experience in treating wounds and illnesses of all kind, she has an uncanny ability to perceive   _past_  injuries nearly as clearly as present ones. It is this particular vision, this ability to draw a case history even from a patient she has never treated before, that makes her so spectacular at her art; and right now it is a _damn bloody nuisance._  
  
"Even before this latest injury, the walls of his stomach were thickened many times over by scar tissue," Eir explains. "Judging by the toxic residue lingering among some of the nerves and vessels, I would judge it to be a result of poison. Poison ingested repeatedly over a long period of time, is my best guess.  
  
"There are also old scars in several places on his body that I believe came from dagger thrusts, that were certainly not on his person when I saw him last. I also found echoes of a severe break in the bones of both of his legs, where the thighs near the knees were completely shattered, most likely from a long fall."  
  
Despite his growing horror, Loki can't help but wince at the reminder of   _that_   particular incident. Right off the battlements a hundred yards down onto hard stone it had been, and it was small consolation that the assassin he'd been struggling with hadn't survived the fall. The least fun part had been getting back to his room through the deserted hallways on two broken legs; it had required the creation of two half-real sort of magical crutches and the involvement of one of the palace dogs.  
  
Eir's voice had been cool and practical as she recounted the list of his injuries; now she hesitates. "There is... one other thing," she said, and in the pause that followed Loki dares a look out of his bug-spy's eyes. Odin's expression could well have been carved out of stone, but for the look in his one remaining eye, and that is dark liquid fury. Loki wonders that Eir would dare to continue in the face of that expression, but Eir did not get to be the most accomplished healer Asgard by being faint-hearted.  
  
"Say on," Odin replies, in a voice that strives for neutrality and utterly fails.  
  
"Once I found the other injuries, I checked him more thoroughly than I otherwise might have, and I found evidence of... intercourse. In absolute terms the tissue damage was minimal, and has since healed completely, but... as the boy's father, I thought you should be informed."  
  
Odin says nothing, and Loki does not dare to look into his face. There is silence for so long that if not for the shifting rustle of their clothing as they breathe, he would have assumed that his spy-spell had failed. At last Eir breaks it with a long exhalation.  
  
"It is not my part to intervene in the private affairs of the royal family," she says, "nor to give my opinion on details of policy or covert operations. I will say, however, that if your son continues to   _insist_   on healing his own injuries with magic instead of coming to me, he had better start taking lessons with me beside my other apprentices for another decade or so. I can't abide sloppy work."  
  
"That will not be necessary," Odin says, and despite the wooden tone of his voice Loki can hear the utter fury that vibrates beneath its surface. "Now, if you will kindly be excused, Eir. I wish to speak with Loki alone."  
  
He hears Eir snort, a single sound expressive enough to convey what she thinks at being _excused_  right out of her own domain. But the Allfather is clearly not in a mood to argue, and so she inclines her head to him in a respectful bow and walks past him down the corridor.  
  
Odin turns towards the door, and his eye flickers as something -- perhaps the tiny green glow Loki has never quite been able to extinguish -- catches his eye. His hand reaches out and envelops all Loki's sight, and Loki blinks and jerks his head back as the magical connection snaps.  
  
He's still blinking stars out of his eyes when the door opens and Odin is framed under the lintel. The magical vision hadn't been the half of it, for Odin is as angry as Loki has rarely seen him. Loki fidgets uncomfortably on the healing couch, looking everywhere and nowhere except at his father; it's an attitude that is all too familiar to him from childhood, when he had been caught at some mischief or another and dragged to the foot of his father's throne to explain himself.  
  
At the same time, Loki can't help but feel a little hurt, bewildered and resentful to be called on the carpet like an errant child. This was no prank, no idle foolishness on his part. He might have miscalculated but he'd done so in the aim of service to the house of Aesir. He's done no lasting harm, and much good; he's done nothing   _wrong,_   so why is Odin looking at him with such suppressed fury?  
  
When Odin finally speaks, his voice is so furious it is almost calm. "I have a thought for a spell I know," he says, "whereby the target is transformed, for the duration of a year, into a tree. The idea has some appeal to me; I understand it is a restful way to spend a convalescence, and your mother could spread her weaving under the shade. Most appealing of all, for the length of that time _I would know exactly where you were and what you were up to!"_  
  
Loki flinches, and looks down. "I never meant to hide anything from you, Father," he mutters defensively. "I thought you knew from the start."  
  
"Yes, you said as much," Odin says with savage sarcasm, "before you unloosed the agony you'd been carrying for my warriors to do battle with. Where, under Yggdrasil's vast canopy, did you get the impression that I   _knew?_  How was I to know, when you never so much as spoke a word to me!"  
  
Loki hesitates, biting his lips, then finally draws in a deep breath. He spent many painful hours thinking how to begin, and finally decided to start at the beginning."You gave me the book," he says lowly. "The one that contained the shadow-veiling spells. For  my coming-of-age day? Don't you remember?" he asks as he sees Odin's confused frown. "I thought -- I thought it was a message, an instruction, that I should serve you with magic as Thor serves you with his might."  
  
Stunned recognition flickers over Odin's face. "There were over a hundred _other_  spells in that book, Loki," he objects. "Why would you fixate on that one, and imagine such a meaning from it?"  
  
Loki doesn't know how to answer, because the truth is that he can't remember now just why such a certainty had gripped him that day. Unless it was all in his head, his deluded desire to be as valuable and worthy a son as Thor. "I thought it was a promise, like the one between he and you when you gifted him Mjolnir. A responsibility."  _A trust._  
  
Odin shakes his head in amazement. "That was a gift, Loki, nothing more. It meant nothing other than that I knew you were interested in magic and I thought you would enjoy it."  
  
"Nothing more?" Loki says, and disbelief colors his voice bitter. "All I have learned and done and striven for   _years_ ,  and it was nothing more to you than a child's passing fancy? Of all the warriors in the Nine Realms, I would have thought _you_  would understand!"  
  
"Do not twist my words," Odin admonishes him, anger beginning to return to his countenance. "You are not --"  
  
"I wanted to serve you!" Loki bursts out, the emotion in his voice overriding his father's mid-word. "To serve Asgard. I   _have_   served you, I do not know what I have done to deserve your wrath. I have done the realm no harm, and much good. I thought to please you --"  
  
"Why did you think it would   _please me_   to put yourself in the way of peril, Loki?" Odin demands.  Loki well recognizes the signs of building temper in his father, but for once in his life is too caught up in his own righteous passion to heed them.    
  
"I only wanted to protect my family -- " Loki plunges on recklessly.  
  
 _"You are  part  of this family!"_ Odin roars, and the strength of his bellow is enough to stun Loki out of his tirade and, indeed, shrink him against the bed as though he were no larger than the bug he'd used to eavesdrop on the earlier conversation. The walls actually   _rattle_   from the force of Odin's voice. "You hurt us all when you bring hurt on yourself!"  
  
Loki's teeth click together when he snaps his jaw shut, and for a long moment father and son glower at each other in silence.  
  
Finally Loki finds his voice, and the words that come to him are silken with venom.  "Strange, that you and Mother do not seem to suffer such agony when Thor goes to risk himself on the field of battle. Surely you do not expect me to believe that your love for Thor is any less than your love for me?" He does not for a moment believe that could be true, that anyone could love Thor less than they would Loki. Such a thing would be unthinkable, unimaginable, and Loki can only spit out the words as a condemning challenge meant to prove Odin's lie.  
  
"Thor is a warrior born, Loki, and you are not," Odin tells him severely. "It is different."  
  
"I fail to see the distinction," Loki snarls. He knows he is provoking Odin's wrath again, but he can't stop the words that slither out of his mouth, like echoing remnants of the magical monsters. "If I am worth so much less than Thor, then I fail to see how it should grieve you more if I should come to a bad end. Surely it should trouble you   _less_?"  
  
Odin is shaking his head, his long gray beard wagging and his face heavy with old sorrow. "Loki, Loki, my clever child. You do not understand."  
  
"Enlighten me," Loki snaps, but wariness creeps into him, saps the righteous anger and the hurt.  
  
Unexpectedly Odin heaves a sigh, and moves to seat himself on the edge of the cot by Loki's feet. His father pauses a moment, perhaps marshalling his thoughts; perhaps delving into his memories. For the first thing he says is,  "From the beginning, Loki, you were a sickly child. Unlike Thor, who was loud and hale and vigorous from the start, for a long time you did not thrive. Your mother, Eir and I were all at a loss as to determine the cause. Sometimes it seemed as though the very air of Asgard itself was inimical to you."  
  
...and there is something more in Odin's expression that Loki can't make out, behind the grief and the anger and the fear. Something that, if there were any reason whatsoever for such an emotion to be on the Allfather's face, might be called   _guilt._  
  
"Even once you passed out of infancy into your walking and speaking years, when you began to attend lessons and play with the other children, still the strange frailty would not loose its grip on you. It seemed you were sick more often than you were well, and none of the treatments the healers could devise seemed to make an improvement for you.

"Too many times through those years, your mother and I had to face the prospect that we would lose you, that you would not live to see the end of the year." Odin's gravelly voice breaks slightly. "We love you, Loki, and we never wished to face such uncertainty again. To be completely truthful with you, my son, we were both relieved when it looked like you would take the scholar's path, one that would keep you safely out of danger."  
  
All at once it hits Loki what his father is talking about, and he is not sure whether to laugh or to _scream._  He has done this to   _himself;_ all those times when he was a child that he had faked illness or weakness in order to get out of something, and now it is coming back to haunt him. Where Thor had become convinced that all of his illness was fake, now his parents were apparently deceived in the opposite direction. Even now that he is a man grown, the childhood fits years behind him, his parents still see him as a frail, sickly child to be protected and sheltered.  
  
He's not. He is   _not._ In the years since coming of age, Loki has drunk poison, walked through fire, thrown himself off tall balconies, grappled with assassins, and bound enough destructive magics under his breast to level a city, and he has survived it all. How many more blows must he   _take_  to prove to them that he is _strong?_  
  
Then Odin seems to come back to himself, the veil of years lifting away as he stands straighter, casts a stern eye over his wayward younger son. "But no more," he says firmly. "Do you understand me? No more of these foolish endeavors. There will be no more sneaking about, no more engaging with assassins, and above all _no more drinking poison!"_  
  
Well, doesn't that just ruin _all_  of Loki's itinerary for the afternoon. "Yes, father," Loki murmurs, outwardly appearing nothing but an obedient and submissive son.  
  
Odin gives him a sardonic look that says clearly that he sees right through that. "In order to make sure you stick to these conditions while I am absent," he says, "I will put Thor to this task on my behalf. He is acting admirably solicitous towards you at the moment, and will agree readily enough. I think the episode in the courtyard gave him quite the shock."  
  
" _What?"_   Loki cries, jerking upright on the cot. "Are you serious? I can take care of myself. I don't need Thor babysitting me!"  
  
"Manifestly, you can't and you do!" Odin snaps in return. "Do not press me on this matter, Loki; I am running very short on patience where your safety is concerned. I will be too busy enough cleaning up the aftermath of this debacle with Svartalfheim. And," he says, and his face goes grim and sunken, "there are some other matters on Vanaheim that I need to see to as well."

And that is apparently the only reference his father is going to make to what the old healer told him. Loki had hoped that he had somehow forgotten or not noticed, but apparently Odin is perfectly capable of putting two and two together with the memory of the Vanir ambassador's drunken demands and his sudden, uncharacteristic cooperation. Loki considers objecting to Odin's obvious bloodthirstiness; it is not as though he had been raped or anything like that. He'd  _offered._  But Odin's made it clear that he thinks nothing of Loki's ability to make his own decisions, and Loki is too lost in grief to struggle with him further.

Odin stands again, a clear signal that the audience is over. "Rest now and be well," he addresses Loki. "I will send Eir back to ensure that you do."  As if Loki can't be trusted to see to his own recovery. As if Loki were still a young child, who needs to be put to bed when he is unruly.

  
But anything he says now will just sound petulant, like a small child, and it is clear that Odin is not in a mood to be moved by words. So in the end all Loki can manage is a stiff little jerk of his chin, and Odin accepts that as his due and sweeps from the hall.  
  
Bitterness wells up in him as his father leaves, and Loki's fingers score deep gouges in the mattress beneath him as he curls his hands into fists. All these months of desperate campaigning for his father's approval -- and he is back where he started, or even further behind than ever. He is not Odin's left hand, he is not Asgard's shield. He is only a wayward child to be curbed and corrected, and left once again in the shadow of his betters.  
  
For all the love his parents claim they bear Loki, it is only the concern one feels for a child or a pet. There is no pride, there is no   _respect_   for the only thing that Asgard respects is strength; strength that Loki will never have in the amounts that are required. No matter what he does, no matter what he becomes Loki will never have _worth_  in the way his family and country want of him.  
  
Not in the way they value Thor. Thor, golden child of a golden city, who so effortlessly embodies everything that Loki can never be. Thor, who will always be the better at the only things that   _matter._  
  
Loki curls on his side on the cot, his eyes staring blindly through the curtained archway at the golden city beyond -- the city that doesn't want him, doesn't   _need_  him, and will never, ever accept him. He squeezes his eyes closed and rolls over to turn his back on it, and the certainty of his own unworthiness burns within him like slow poison.  


 ~end.


End file.
